I’ve never been the biggest advocate of Liverpool trio The Wombats. If you’d asked me a week ago what I thought of them I would have laughed and said the only song worth knowing was “Let’s Dance to Joy Division” (which happens to be a jam and a half) but anything else was a waste of time. I downloaded their followup LP This Modern Glitch the other day on a boredom-induced whim and I’m glad I did.
At a first listen, the album is a lot of the same danceable, rough-edge Brit pop/rock as their debut. Though it’s cleaner. Less obnoxious. More modern (as though the album title wasn’t a dead give away). They’ve added sugar coated layers of 1980’s synth and high tempo’d guitar riffs. Ironically this oft over the top ’80s vibe proves to be its modern glitch. Suffice it to say, there’s still something about their music that makes them more a guilty pleasure than anything else after your first few runs through of this album.
With a five-year gap between albums, you’d expect considerable maturity in the lyrics; this is not immediately noticeable in this album, which in a rather heart-on-the-sleeve manner grapples with the pangs and debauched pleasures of the life of the modern 20-something. In “1996” they reminisce on the long lost teenage days of carelessness. At times (i.e. “Tokyo” and “Jump Into the Fog”) they mockingly shirk the responsibility of maturity. The lyrics are almost too honest. Frontman Matthew Murphy declares, “I’ve made mistakes I admit that freely/It’s just that life tastes sweeter when it’s wrapped in debauchery.” The albums ultimate hook (and possibly saving grace because it allows you to see the band through a different lens) is its first single “Anti-D” in which Murphy discusses his ongoing struggle with chemical depression. The album from this point on becomes a lifeline. The self-deprecating wit of the other songs gains new perspective and the album in general doesn’t seem so one dimensional.
Despite the gloomy undertones, the album is dressed in warm flourishes that make it utterly, almost confusingly enjoyable, like a shock of energy through your system. Murphy sings “The lasers fill our minds with empty plans/I never knew I was techno fan.” The album is far from flawless, but it doesn’t aim for perfection and that’s made clear through some of the darker aspects of it. But it does succeed on several grounds. It did enough to change my mind about them, I’ll admit. I guess I never knew I was a Wombats fan.
Tracklist
1. Our Perfect Disease
2. Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)
3. Jump Into the Fog
4. Anti-D
5. Last Night I Dreamt…
6. Techno Fan
7. 1996
8. Walking Disasters
9. Girls/Fast Cars
10. Schumacher the Champagne
11. Valentine
Free Candy
Techno Fan (Acoustic Glitch)
Anti-D (Acoustic Glitch)
Tokyo (’96 Bulls Remix)
Let’s Dance to Joy Division
