Labels: Coraille
Review by: Andy Malcolm
You are probably more than familiar with Timmy K’s rock band. Their debut CD is now rereleased in Europe by Coraille records on vinyl, and they sent it for review, as I don’t think we covered it the first time around. Not sure if Collective was broken then or we simply didn’t care. It also has one extra track, “How to Haunt a House” from the “one bright sunny sunny morning” comp. Anyway, I know this release was very popular at the time, I shifted a few units via SNCL but didn’t really give it a chance myself as I had grown bored of Kinsella’s impressive ability to get progressively more annoying per record released. This CD is a bit of an antidote to many of his post Owls releases (or at least, the ones that I have heard), yet it also is a landmark record for a bunch of reasons. These days, if you see a British band claim that it is influenced by Cap’n Jazz, chances are they mean they are influenced by this band instead. Make Believe’s debut is full of frantic, mathematical guitar widdling and Kinsella yelps. I read a depressing comment on another website the other day, it said “There’s a whole bunch of exciting young bands emerging that are taking the ‘core attitudes of bands like … Cap n Jazz … and ripping it through a thoroughly British pop filter”. Is that missing the fucking point of Cap’n Jazz or what? There is a proliferation of bands who think it is big AND clever to wank frenziedly in this fashion, and their music is devoid of anything that makes music any good. Yet where they sound disgustingly forced and make you want to never hear again, Kinsella at least manages to concoct something interesting and skew a secret melody in there somewhere. “Britt’s Favourite” is a particularly ace track, Timmy squeals like he is 16 again and the guitars brood very nicely, it’s the closest thing to post-Cap’n Jazz as you’ll probably hear. There are six songs on here, all leaning in slightly different directions. Some prodding you in the chest and leaping around going LOOK AT ME!!! and others doing things much more subtly, such as the excellent “Abracadabra – Thumbs”.
So whilst the sounds of this band have been mis-applied by those unsound of musical nous, it does remain a dashed fine thing to listen to for the most part, and is well worth re-visiting or checking out for the first time if you missed it’s initial release. I apologise that this review was basically a space for me to rant about something, but really, I suspect most people interested in this record don’t need me to tell them to buy it.