Emergency

A promising band

The Pigeon Detectives is not the first and not the last garage band that achieved immediate recognition right after release of the debut album. There are plenty of such stories nowadays. Almost every popular indie rock act has gone through something of this kind. And the more new bands appear the more interesting it is to know how many of them will have a long and prosperous career. When The Pigeon Detectives released their first album Wait For Me in 2007 the forecast about their future looked relatively positive. The record was promising although it wasn't really significant. It sounded bold but it lacked power. Roughly speaking, The Pigeon Detectives reveled themselves as a pretty promising band, which had all chances to grow into something really worth sounding. Usually it takes time but not for The Pigeon Detectives. Only one year passed since Wait For Me was issued but they are here again with their sophomore release called Emergency. So if you always wanted to know if there was any sense in all that 2007's indie baby boom you have your chance now. The first swallows (pigeons) have arrived!

The Pigeon Detectives and the source of their inspiration

It was always interesting to know how the big rock bands of bygone era managed to release one album a year and sometimes even two without being boring and tiresome. Their workability may be compared with a hit producing conveyor belt. Sadly, but it has nothing to do with The Pigeon Detectives. It is hard to say what is the real source of their inspiration (are they really that prolific or they simply realize that success demands quick action) but it is absolutely clear that the source is lame. To say that Emergency is the same album as Wait For Me means to make this band a complement. Indeed, both of them have too much in common, which in itself is not a bad thing, but the problem is that Emergency inherited the worst parts of its predecessor. First of all it concerns a so to say general spirit of these songs, which is expressed here in a simple amateurishness. It is almost impossible to get away from a feeling that you are listening to a band of schoolboys who dropped in at their rehearsal room after classes. It is forgivable for a young and little-known band but when you intend to sell a million of album copies it probably makes sense to take care about your solo techniques or to take a couple of vocal lessons.

Emergency is an album for devoted indie fans

But technical disadvantages comprise only half of a problem. The main trouble of Emergency is the quality of material. It doesn't really matter how good you are as a musician, it doesn't really matter how good your sound is – if your song has something that makes it a good song everything else simply goes to the background. But they simply don't have that something. Well, to be more precise, they have it but this very something is very unstable and evaporable. Honestly speaking, the first four songs sound good enough. Everything looks quite fresh, brisk and youthfully driven – approximately in the same indie way like it was on their first album. But then everything starts moving downhill. The band simply performs the same ideas over and over again and therefore cannot hold your attention in focus. A conveyor belt called The Pigeon Detectives churns out songs without thinking much if anybody will be interested in this product or not. This is quite a shortsighted policy – there are not so many bands that have the same fortune to climb up the national charts, it is something one should appreciate. It is possible that a real indie fan has evidences to disprove it and it is possible that this band really got everything he needs but the band is quite careless about it. This album had to be better it was simply obliged to. Their debut record just showed that The Pigeon Detectives might become a really good band. But they decided to relax instead of getting down to business well and truly. The only thing that Emergency proves is that the time is the best judge.