Albums of 2008: #6

Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up Til it Was Light



Now we reach a really cheering section of this rundown. See, in recent years there's been a bit of a lack of new bands capable of making the lists, Guillemots aside, and I was beginning to worry slightly. Now though, we get three* superb debuts from new British bands in a row, and aside from all using alternating boy-girl vocals and being distinctly indie, they cover a fair spread of styles too.

First Johnny Foreigner, whose debut is a lesson in high energy compressed melody, taking handclaps and pop sensibilities and burying them in enough fuzz that you're carried on along on its wave, barely stopping to glimpse meaning here and there. Equipped with some seriously inventive guitar playing and drumming, they frequently change direction completely with barely a pause for breath, or speed up songs beyond what seems like it should be breaking point. Throwing in noises and feedback as punctuation marks, they rush headlong from A to B to A again, coherance sacrificed if necessary - the final thrilling screamed 'IMIGHTBEDRUNKBUTATLEASTI'MSTANDINGUP!' of "Sometimes, in the Bullring" sounds barely human.

As an example of how peripheral the lyrics were to my enjoyment of much of this album, I only just noticed on a listen through before writing this that said song references Jeff Buckley. What still comes through is how grounded they are in a sense of place, and conflicted love for the place, that's easy to appreciate even as someone who's never been to their hometown of Birmingham.

There's also the startling song about being a band "Yr All Just Jealous" which starts off with the lines 'Hot girls know the words to our songs/And I'm terrified of what comes next' and does sound abjectly terrified as it thrashes around before eventually the lights come on and a beautifully sad and melodic chorus of 'One by one will move away for friends or university/One by one fulfils a plan/And leaves three ghosts in Birmingham'.

Special mention also has to be made of almost everyone's favourite "Salt, Peppa and Spinderella". The standout track, it teeters on the brink of falling apart for a couple of comparatively minimalist minutes before 'turn on the real drums!' gleefully announces escapist headbanging heaven.

That they turned out to be big Idlewild fans was a bit of an 'ahh' moment as those guitar sounds and cramming of words into lines reminded of nothing so much as that band's superior early days. Token slow song "DJs Get Doubts" shows a particular spooky likeness to Woomble and co. Even back then they never made an album quite this great, though.

(*four, sort of)