Late Of The Pier: Album Of The Year?

There is a disappointing moment on the Late Of The Pier album that comes around three minutes into ‘The Enemy Are The Future’, when the sung guitar solos and faux-Bryan Ferry vocals suddenly and without warning morph into two minutes of heads down, DFA-meets-Daft Punk loopy loopery and you realise, crushingly, that not all albums are like this.

Following Klaxons’ formula (basically take a load of nice boys, mix well with drugs, add drums and synths and lyrics about… well… stuff, and serve over a bed of melodic dancefloor-friendly indie) and charging headlong into even quirkier realms might have backfired spectacularly, were it not for the fact that this lot have such a head for pop-centred weirdery they could find a tune in a fucking Lockets factory.

From the Muse-esque fanfare that is ‘Hot Tent Blues’ to the Rocky Horror Picture Show thrills ‘n’ spills of fan favourite ’Bathroom Gurgle’, this is a record that bristles with otherworldly invention. But whereas most knowingly zany ventures splutter and die at the first hurdle (ie the chorus), ‘Fantasy Black Channel’ somehow manages to be more hook-filled than the mouth of a particularly sought-after trout.

Witness ‘Random Firl’’s intro, a hideously addictive reimagining of the 8-bit genre as buzzsaw fretwork; or ‘Whitesnake’ and its impromptu impression of a glammed-up ‘n’ galloping Sparks; or ‘VW’’s sax-tinged Final Fantasy choirs; the list goes on. Even the album’s worst track (‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’) packs a final thirty seconds that most bands would sell their drummer for.

With one eye on British musical eccentricity past and another set firmly on the future, Late Of The Pier have made a classic of their time (which, by the sound of it, is about 11pm on a Friday some time in 2018). Four Horsemen, the ball is in your court.

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