Feeder - Silent Cry

2008 witnesses the much loved three-piece, Feeder, come back with their seventh studio album, ‘Silent Cry’. After the disappointment that was ‘Pushing The Senses’, Feeder are set to storm the UK with an album that sees them go back to the times of ‘Just A Day’ and ‘Seven Days In The Sun’. Read more

Elle Milano: Laughing All The Way To The Plank

Admittedly, ‘Laughing All The Way To The Plank’ could indeed be “their pop song” - it’s short, to the point and catchy as hell, and definitely one of the highlights of their fantastic debut LP. But it’s the driving piano chords, singer Adam Crisp’s sharp vocals and the lyrical content that really separate the song from the rest of their bland indie rock peers. Read more

Maybeshewill - Not For Want Of Trying

Simon Catling
Since when did Leicester become the hotbed of all things post rock and instrumental? Her Name Is Calla are making ripples and are soon to be heading up to Leeds, where an undoubted increase in attention awaits them; and now we have the debut full length LP from four piece Maybeshewill. The band showed promise in 2006 with the EP Japanese Spy Transcripts- four tracks undoubtedly indebted to 65 Days Of Static but containing enough originality, pitch and emotion to hold their own unique sound. ‘The Paris Hilton Sex Tape’ makes another, re-recorded, appearance here as does a follow up to ‘He Films The Clouds’. Yet this is a group who’ve grown since then and whilst the glitchy, IDM influenced percussion and effects are still there, they’ve been allied by new sounds and greater expanse so as to provide a terrifically exciting, energetic and diverse album.The quietly disarming introduction of ‘Ixnay On The Autoplay’ does little to prepare the listener for what is ahead, and is hence swiftly split apart by the atmospheric rumbling drums of ‘Seraphim & Cherubim’; a song that seems by its nature of full throttled riffs and ceaseless energy to be tailor made for a live setting. The ear searing guitars fall away however to be replaced by simple yet effective keyboards, before the two contrasting armies of sound come back together in a crashing crescendo of a finale. The redone ‘Paris Hilton Sex Tape’ comes with additional added muscle and an increased emphasis on a fuller sounding, heavier track. Its age does tell however in that it remains Maybeshewill’s most telling nod to their contemporaries taking in both Mogwai and 65 Days Of Static on its electronically charged, ear-bludgeoning three and a half minutes. In contrast ‘I’m In Awe Amadeus!’ fails to live up to its title, proving one of the weaker tracks as Maybeshewill opt to play it safe with a slow gurning melody hiding itself behind some overly frothy layering.

Form is regained though with the Slint-esque spiky brilliance of ‘We Called For An Ambulance But A Fire Engine Came’ that drills away at the brain in sharp, angry bursts; before a calm descends with soaring strings bringing giving respite. Indeed it’s in the quieter parts of this album that Maybeshewill manage to play their trump card: when shorn of the vacuum of sound building up behind them, the four piece opt for the simple options and intertwine them together instead of fidgeting around with unnecessary time changes or piano-wankery. Whilst it can mean subtlety goes out of the window, its effect is such that the calming beauty of its emotion shines through as strongly as any of their powerfully moving walls of sound. Then delightfully, during ‘Heartflusters’, we hear a most surprising but wonderful thing: vocals! And not just thrown in as an afterthought either. As John Helps asks ‘are you feeling the walls closing in?’ you can feel the wonderful juxtaposition to the uplifting, fragile music behind him- not unlike Thom Yorke’s solo title track ‘The Eraser’. Helps in fact provides an uncanny impersonation of the Radiohead man but just as the music appears to be drifting up towards somewhere untoward, the electric storm returns as the chanted refrain ‘stop, do not engage’ is submerged under a torrent of fuzz and glitch before ‘C.N.T.R.C.K.T’ roars into life with an unrelenting power and intensity.

In the consequence of all this, the final three tracks come across as an extended finale to the entire album. ‘He Films Clouds Pt. 2′ allows to bassist Tanya Byrne to take the lead on vocals after a suitably epic build up, as the piano and percussion build ominously behind her and the familiar hook from Japanese Spy Transcript’s ‘Pt. 1′ returns as a haunting presence. Title track ‘Not For Wanting Of Trying’ is something else though. The sound is of the group expending every last ounce of energy that they have, as though they’ve reached breaking point yet refuse to yield. Once again its simple but effective; raging metal gives way to isolated splendour, xylophones and, curiously, Peter Finch’s ‘Mad as Hell’ speech from Network. Readers may be aware that the already mentioned 65 Days Of Static have a collection of bootlegs floating round known as ‘Unreleased/Unreleasable’. Take the best of that, saw off the rough edges and what you get is ‘Not For The Wanting Of Trying’ which, even amidst such exhorted surroundings, comes across as nothing short of a masterpiece and is in effect the final track, short of the slow, winding down outro of ‘Takotsubo’.

Maybeshewill are a band with awesome potential; but what comes across from the above few sentences is that we’re dealing with an epic, sprawling, long haul of an album. Yet as the final strains of ‘Takotsubo’ fade out, the whole thing has clocked in at under forty minutes. The range of the pallet that they’ve created in this album is worthy of attention, that they fit it all into such a compact timeframe whilst losing none of their expanse and gravitas is nothing short of startling. In a year which has already seen a slew of stellar albums released right across the board, ‘Not For The Want Of Trying’ is an LP that rightly deserves it’s place right amongst them- daft song titles and all.

Robert Ensor
Some albums are one piece of music from start to finish. Some may have two or three particularly good tracks emerging as icebergs in a sea of relative filler. Others float somewhere between the two, and it’s this third category that Maybeshewill’s debut album falls into. Certain tracks will certainly stand alone as excellent pieces of musicianship, both in writing and playing - ‘Heartflusters’ and the ninth, and title, track, for example - while there are sections of this album that pass so easily the listener is unaware that two or three tracks have just gone by.The album opens promisingly, flowing quickly through the first few tracks until reaching the first peak, ‘I’m in Awe, Amadeus!’, before hitting a few glitches, both figuratively and literally. This perhaps increases the impact of ‘Heartflusters’, allowing it to take on an extra dimension in moving the album on and away from what had come before, a feeling exaggerated by the first appearance of lyrics on the record.

Merging passages of piano with electronics and guitar isn’t necessarily an original concept - 65daysofstatic, clearly one of Maybeshewill’s influences, have been doing it for a while - but that doesn’t change the joy felt when it’s executed so expertly as it is in places on this album. ‘He Films the Clouds Pt. 2′ is a wonderful example of this, ultimately giving no clue to what comes next in the title track - an exhiliratingly aggressive intro which takes heed of the voice sample introduced halfway through: “I want you to get mad”. These two tracks are the clear highlight of the album; almost a microcosm of the whole thing.

Ultimately though, the album appears hit and miss with some great passages punctured by what are sub-standard tracks, for the high standards already set. It seems to be a clear case of a missed opportunity, as all the ingredients are present for a truly brilliant album, but they’ve just not been put together in quite the right way. Even more annoying is that the band are seemingly unable to nail their mind-blowing live sound on record. If they were to manage that, the result would be a record of the year.

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