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Album Reviews
Album Review: Howling Bells – Radio Wars (Independiente)
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 2 March 2009
Howling Bells crash into the start of this album amidst a rampage of sixth form poetry and attempted PJ Harvey-isms. Arcade Fire-style drums and instrumental bridge periods that cry: shit… this is the album that people have to buy for us to sustain our brand of hard-touring mediocrity. Beneath the meat-and-two-veg ‘intelligent’ (or should that be slightly atmospheric) indie rock there may be a mote of talent. However, it is hidden beneath prosaic production, inane subject matter and – at the crux – it’s just a bit boring. The songs never really click out of a moderate tempo that builds to the Springsteen/AF bit, which is fails to convince so frequently they should start dressing as knights and attacking Spanish windmills. The production is a suitably overwrought companion to this bollocks. Dan Grech-Marguerat is to blame for this, apparently. By song 5 (‘Let’s be Kids’) I was so bored I started picking scabs. Every sell-out trick in the book is pulled to make a commercially viable album; from key changes to big final choruses; ‘This is trendy’ lets use the drum machine wankery; The modern day family friendly crowd pleasers. Maybe in a simpler age where Sterophonics were seen as idiot savants, rather than just idiots, this album would have been an album that provided a scales from the eyes moment of direction for music. Actually, no. That was a lie. They simply forgot to write songs that aren’t shit. PG
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