Flaws

Bombay Bicycle Club returns with acoustic melodies

In the present day’s conditions when it is rather easy to promote one’s own creative work but it is getting harder to stand out predictability is becoming a very dangerous quality. One-album-stand young bands’ names are hard to remember but it is even worse if the first album is a success and the follow-up is its complete copy. The audience is constantly waiting for something new, and predictable collections are of no interest to anybody. Therefore quite a number of musicians keep experimenting all the time which is also risky in a way. Nevertheless some collectives make it to hit the target with every release being unpredictable and bold at the same time. Bombay Bicycle Club is exactly the case. Releasing last year a splendid debut album I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose, conquering the audience with a sincere and soulful indie rock the four young musicians come back this summer with their sophomore effort Flaws. The new record proves to be a 180 degree turn in the direction of acoustic melodies – the covers of their own and somebody else’s songs.

The high level of the arrangements’ quality on Flaws

If on Bombay Bicycle Club’s debut album vocalist Jack Steadman sang with the accompaniment of electro guitars with various pedals then guitarist Jamie MacColl demonstrates on Flaws that he plays acoustic guitar no less masterfully. Besides his father, Neill MacColl is also a musician and composer and has been one of the album’s producers, so one may not question the high level of the songs arrangements’ quality. The album opens with rather an up-tempo composition Rinse Me Down, on which it is clear at once the musicians’ sincere interest for this kind of stylistics and their young energy and positive mood. A little more tranquil song Many Ways pleases with great guitar modulations and soft vocals, whereas Dust On The Ground – the debut album’s lead single – slows down the rhythm completely and makes one reflect. One should definitely note not the most serious but the most contagious number Ivy & Gold and very emotional Leaving Blues dwelling on the theme of a forced good-bye saying among the album’s highlights. Fairytale Lullaby is a John Martyn’s cover, to which the guys have given a special charm, while Jewel was initially released as a B-side with the single Evening/Morning. The title track is refined with some country elements and female backing vocals and the lyrics of the final composition Swansea, the longest one on the record, is taken from Joanna Newsom’s song.

An interesting, unpredictable and effortless work

The album Flaws – 11 tracks, lasting a bit longer than half an hour all together – surprises with its lightness. It seems like the musicians have been playing exactly suchlike music throughout their lives, and this is far from their first collection. Of course the experienced professionals’ credit is obvious but it is the guys that make these songs so light and ethereal. Perhaps the fans that appreciated the debut album will be surprised at such a turn of events, but they will taste the new flavor of Bombay Bicycle Club’s music very soon and fall in love with it. The guitarist, the bassist, the drummer and the vocalist – each of them performs his part in an absolutely effortless way, freely and harmoniously with the rest of the band members. Thus, the British group’s sophomore effort has proved to be completely different from what one could expect – Bombay Bicycle Club has once again managed to surprise the audience. With such a sequence of wonderful albums one can have no doubt that the follow-up to Flaws will turn out to be no less interesting, unpredictable and effortless.