Albums of 2008: #18

Guillemots - Red



Guillemots' follow-up to Through The Windowpane, their debut and my favourite album of 2006, mystified at least as many as it pleased. While Through The Windowpane was incredibly ambitious and very occasionally suffered for it, its ambitions were for the 'epic' within relatively traditional rock song structures. Red, on the other hand, has as many nods to '80s pop and more recent R&B than to anything within their previous sphere.

From the metallic funk bounce of "Big Dog" to the sharp electronic pop of "Last Kiss" and slick falsetto "Standing on the Last Star", they repeatedly confounded expectations and seemed to get little but flack for it. Which is a crying shame because at its best, at the moments when there's nothing to do but grin and think 'did they really just pull that off?', Red even outshines the debut.

The thundering eastern strings and ever expanding reach of "Kriss Kross" make for an awe-inspiring opening. "Get Over It" successfully tied cool and bubbly pop with an undercurrent of improvised madness better than anything since they first announced themselves with "Who Left the Lights Off, Baby?" and when "Don't Look Down" takes a sudden left turn from superior U2 ballad into skittering electronic chaos, its dramatic lyrical images of the sky falling make a vivid kind of sense.

The reason that this record is only 18, then, is actually because the regret here is that they didn't completely follow through on their new ambitions. A handful of slow songs retread old ground overproduced and unsatisfying style and add to the fatal impression that the whole thing is a bit of stylistic mess. It will be even more interesting then to see where they go next.