It only takes one listen to realise why DJs across the land are still playing the old stuff. Too many of the tracks are just, well, dull.
It only takes one listen to realise why DJs across the land are still playing the old stuff. Too many of the tracks are just, well, dull.
The Futureheads – News And Tributes
Over the course of the last few years, rock has started to become fun again. Finally there are a few bands around who don’t seem to take themselves too seriously, who just go about the business of making records custom designed for dancing about the bedroom – and of these bands few made as promising a start to their career as The Futureheads. The Sunderland four-piece’s eponymous debut record possessed tremendous energy and flair, and singles Hounds Of Love and Decent Days And Nights became club staples, so this second effort, News And Tributes, has a lot to live up to.
If you made a brief checklist of all the qualities that were prominent on their debut and cross-referenced them with this new one, things look rather promising. Spiky, angular riffs? Check. An abundance of vocal harmonies? Check. Bile-filled lyrics yelped out in the heaviest Mackem drawl? Check. But just as you reach the end of the list, there’s a big, empty box. It’s the one marked "fun". Because this record marks the point – for good or for ill – where The Futureheads are starting to grow up. The first record’s punch and sense of humour are gone, replaced by reflections on a range of subjects from break-ups to the Munich air crash, which basically means that for this record is going to have to have some very good tunes. Regrettably, this is where News And Tributes all too often falls down.
Certainly things get off to a fairly promising start – Yes/No has a tub thumping vocal matched to a guitar line straight out of the Classic Rock Riffs book (as a matter of fact Yes/No is one of several songs where the guitars sounds distinctly familiar, even though I can’t place any of the tunes I actually recognise them from), but good as the opener is the warning signs are in place. Despite its immediacy and the obvious excellence of its writing, at no point does your foot begin to tap of its own accord, and never do you find your head nodding involuntarily. It’s this that makes this record such a disappointment – The Futureheads thrived on being enormously enjoyable, and stripped of that quality the tracks are revealed as being mostly rather inadequate. There’s still lots about News And Tributes to appreciate, but without the boyishness of the band’s previous work The Futureheads are sadly revealed as being no more than just another half-decent band with a couple of guitars – perhaps with a few solid tunes but with most of the tracks merging together to create a rather unmemorable collection. Certainly there are some very good songs on here, but for the most part you’ll have a hard time remembering exactly how the songs actually go.
Ironically a lot of this restraint seems self-imposed. Listening to Fallout, each time the song finally sounds like it’s going to start getting exciting, everything is immediately slowed down; the tempo is removed. Given a riff like that on Skip To The End (actually a very good song indeed, and another one where the guitar sounds achingly familiar) a couple of years ago, you suspect that the finished product would bursting with energy, but as it is it only takes one listen to realise why DJs across the land are still playing the old stuff. Too many of the tracks are just, well, dull. Admittedly The Futureheads’ new found maturity and sensitivity comes good, when the music matches the expected standards – Burnt may be a fairly standard boy-meets-girl number (the lyrics even poke gentle fun at themselves, with Barry Hyde asking "Can you tell where this is going?" at the end of the first verse), but it builds up to a satisfying climax.
Back to the Sea as well may not have the faintest chance of inducing solo bedroom-dancing displays but it does have a fair amount of bite and a fine, rumbling bass line to pin the song down. At the end of the day though, only the excellent Worry About It Later actually provides any visceral pleasure, and visceral pleasure is the clearly what The Futureheads are best at providing – on this evidence they clearly aren’t as good at providing more considered thrills, and this record is far too considered for its own good, which it was made me have to check the track-listing again just to make sure that it was indeed Cope and Thursday which I snoozed through. Add the aimless, artless clatter of Return of the Beserker (the song lives up to its title, believe me) and sadly News and Tributes is not the classic record it aspires to be.
There is just enough here to justify splashing out on it, but only if you’re a devoted fan or have plenty of cash to burn, and most of this album does feel like a waste of money. There are just enough moments to perhaps avert the feeling that you’d be better of taking it back to the shop, but only just. It’s a shame, but plenty of bands have released poor albums and still gone on to be remembered as greats, and The Futureheads have already demonstrated that they have what it takes to go a long way, but first they need to chop about a decade off the mental age of their music.
Words: Matt Gregory.