Labels: Song, By Toad Records
Review by: C. Kuzmiski
What’s this for Czine? A bit of bedsit britpop Morrissey worship? Should there ever be a mention of Menswe@r or My Life Story in these refined and somewhat “core filled pages? Well there is now.
Trips and Falls aren’t common people from terraced England, they are from Montreal, which would explain some of the West Atlantic influences “” notably Stellastar and early Mercury Rev. They also mention “early U2′ in their Facebook, who are about as treasured here in the UK as Skrewdriver. There is probably some pouting ironic credibility somewhere in musical la la land for the far-right punk bores, but U2? That’s just sick.
There is however, a very British sense of irony at work here. Most of the tracks offer wry lyrics, chipper bombast and witty titles “” “Tragically Unhip’, “So, You’re Like Monumentally Busy’. So far so good, but there is clearly a tortured soul at work here. It’s the slower dramatic tracks “Happy People Scare Me’ and “The Rest is the Same as Above’ that sound most honest and really resonate. Presumably Montreal is teeming with string players, thanks to Constellation records being home there? A dose of orchestra would work wonders here “” and it ubiquitously britpop.
As the album progresses it loses the knees-up-mother-brown-ness and inflections of Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad creep in – sans the grating accents* – which lends gravity to the proceedings and rounds it off nicely.
*I’m Scottish so I can get away with that.