Band names are curious things. They can define a group’s soul, sound and attitude without even having to play a note. Chosen wisely, they can draw people to shows and records by sheer virtue of an awesome or mysterious moniker.
Or they can pick a really rubbish name like The Beatles and become the biggest combo in the world anyway.
An obstacle that bands face nowadays of course is that they’re operating in a market where it’s becoming harder to both come up with something arresting and original as well as not being awful. Duplication and litigation is not uncommon, even among the larger bands (both Nirvana and the Screaming Trees have doppelgangers, and Verve had to add a “The” to avoid certain legal doings). So it’s probably not surprising to see curious little trends bubbling on the surface with regard to naming. Last year, it was Bees. This year, it’s Whales. Almost certainly coincidence but a nice one nonetheless, and it’s surely only a matter of time before the Whaley Bees stun us all with their groundbreaking debut. Or something.
Anyway, all this ponderous preamble means nothing when ultimately it’s what they come up with that matters. This debut album from yet another fine band from Seattle wonderfully brings to mind several past summers, including the one we had here just last week…
Shangri-La Indeed sets out the Black Whales’ musical stall out from the off, and it’s a surprising stall indeed. Swapping one Northwest for another, their sound is that of an early 1980s spent at either end of the M62, with Manchester and Liverpool well-represented. The latter is the biggest immediate, with Merseyside’s holy trinity (The Mighty Wah!, Teardrop Explodes and – especially – Echo and the Bunnymen) in full spiritual swing behind Alex Robert’s youthful invocation of Ian McCulloch’s reverbed nasal tones, which has this curious knack of being able to effortlessly hop 20 miles to the left and a decade forward to bring flavours of the Charlatans’ Tim Burgess’ cheery twang amongst the Stone Roses’ early summery quasi-innocence such as in the quirky rhythms of Young Blood and the louche campfire singalong of Elephant #2, which of course was quite liberally half-inched from late 1960s California in the first place. There’s even a nice Beatles moment in The Wild Ones’ coda where Strawberry Fields Forever gets a brief, reverential visit. Influences are worn on sleeves throughout, and are moulded into something a bit new, but leaving all the ingredients sticking out for the sheer fun of it.
It’s not all semi-druggy sunshine pop though, the guitars and drums are nearer the front than the back, and it’s all so irresistibly hooky that dancing is more of the order of the day than flopping about on big cushions with a hankering for jaffa cakes.
It gets a bit closer to home occasionally – Rattle Your Bones’ verses (and the way that Alex’s chameleonic vocals match a very young Mark Lanegan at his highest-pitched) are closely-related to *very* early Screaming Trees before going all Bunnymen on us yet again halfway through.
Overall, it’s rather a wonderful package, triggering a host of great memories of days gone by for me whilst also bringing that indefinable other “something” to the table to ensure that this isn’t raking over old coals. It’s well worth grabbing a hold of and treating your ears (and, for our older listeners, memories) to – head on over to their Bandcamp and find out for yourselves.
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