The Big Pink
Future This
(4AD/Remote Control)
Anchored by a smarmy breakout single in ‘Dominos’, The Big Pink’s 2009 debut
A Brief History of Love married soft-focus electronics with indie rock sing-alongs, amid the kind of shoegaze fog once typified by the London band’s label 4AD. Since then, sideman Milo Cordell’s 2010
Tapes mix under the Big Pink name unearthed murky, up-to-the-minute electronics from the likes of Joker, Salem, jj and Horse Macgyver. It’s a surprise, then, that on second album
Future This the electronics seem like an afterthought tacked onto so much soppy balladry and anthemic condescension.
From opener ‘Stay Gold’ right through to the closing ‘77’, these songs feel generic, half-baked, dated and inane all at once. Frontman Robbie Furze’s plaintive vocal arc is by far the most appealing thing about this record, but even when the duo stumbles into flat-out catchy choruses, they’re mere guilty pleasures at best.
Compared to some tracks, the daft would-be rave-rock of ‘Stay Gold’ and ‘Jump Music’ actually seem potentially worthwhile. But catch wind of a lyric like
“In the end we’re all made of gold” or an especially lame beat and it’s beyond salvation. One could be charitable and view the tossed-off lyric
“I wanna be adored” in ‘Lose Your Mind’ as a nod to classic Stone Roses, but it’s lodged in a song that’s all MOR songwriting and stodgy dance-floor mechanics. Worse still? ‘77’ indulges in faux trip-hop, ‘13’ nears cornball Snow Patrol territory, ‘The Palace (So Cool)’ evokes a latter-day Weezer lost in space and the bratty ‘Rubbernecking’ sounds like an embarrassing 1990s fluke hit: think Porno for Pyros meets Third Eye Blind.
Then there’s ‘Give It Up’, which borrows its production and lyrical feel from hip-hop: Furze’s reference to high-end vodka (
“a glass of Goose”) is his version of rap-star excess. It’s better than most here, but still more dumb than inspired. The only song that isn’t worth jettisoning has to be ‘Hit the Ground (Superman)’, an obvious single that’s another ‘Dominos’ at the very least. Sampling Laurie Anderson’s iconoclastic
‘O Superman’, it’s near impossible to deny. Count it as the one bit of proof here that The Big Pink can still write singles that stay stuck in our heads...without feeling like a malignant growth.
Doug Wallen
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The Big Pink - ‘Hit the Ground (Superman)’