The Basket, Guillemots

The reason I didn't post yesterday was because I was waiting for the song to come on Youtube...

When your favourite band disappoints, it's hard to know how to respond. Your immediate reaction is to try and find all the positives, convince yourself that it's actually the best thing they've ever released, and that it only seems a disappointment because they're doing something radically different.

This is what I tried to convince myself with Red, the second album from the multi-national, London based quartet Guillemots. Sure, it had some stand out songs, I'd still argue that Don't Look Down could stand side by side to their best songs, and that Get Over It was the perfect example of glittery pop of which they were striving to achieve. But compared to their majestic debut, and the couple of EPs that were released around it? Pffft. It was nothing. It was a band who clearly have some of the most interesting ideas at the moment, a band full of creativity and magic wanting to be just another pop band, and it often came off a bit too Sophie Ellis-Bextor for my liking.

I hoped that the Guillemots found this in their own work and will either revert back to the style of their debut, or do something else entirely for their latest album. And whilst we'll have to wait a month or two for that album, this song suggests they're somewhere in the middle. This is apparent from the opening, some 80s synth, some textured sound and Fyfe's voice inanely shouting 'ooooh-oooh-ohhh' over the music. There's then some reverby-bass accompanied by an acoustic guitar, quite the daring mix, but it sounds quite natural.

It sounds more like a B-Side from their last album called Throw Me a Sun, a song I'm quite fond of, crossed with Annie Let's Not Wait. But I hoped they'd left this style behind them. The more I listen to it, the more I'm intrigued by its sonic qualities, and I absolutely love the ending. I suppose it's made me even more interested in their third album, I just hope it doesn't all sound quite like this.