Album Review: The 1975 – Facedown EP
Featured in our Bands to Watch section by Mary not long ago, the 1975 are a band that have been quite a while in the making. Having undergone a number of different monikers over the last few years, they’ve finally settled on their rather unGoogleable name and committed to Dirty Hit Records. Can I get a “hallelujah”?
The ‘Facedown’ EP is the first of two to be released this year before we finally receive an album from the Manchester act and from the off, like so much of this band’s history, it’s completely misleading. As if the name changes and constant playing around with fans and releases wasn’t already bad enough, any prior knowledge of this group will shout “deception!” at you.
The title and opening track ‘Facedown’ (video at the end of this post) is the kind of track that would be a stunning intro to any band’s arsenal; it sounds barely like the 1975 that created the second track ‘The City’. Bouncing straight out of the blocks with its huge drum line and almost romantic call to arms in “if you wanna find love / then you know where the city is”, ‘The City’ oozes the kind of “put us in a big field” vibe that you know the 1975 have. Any visit to a live show of theirs tells you that there’s so much more where this track comes from and that they’re not destined for the landfill.
Sounds great, right? Half of the EP in and no complaints? Sadly, that’s where the aforementioned deception comes in. The rest is borderline mush from a band that are by no means mushy. By all means write slow songs, take for example some of the highlights of Bloc Party’s career so far in ‘So Here We Are’ and ‘I Still Remember’, but filling three-fourths of your debut EP with it when that’s not the band that your fans know you are is nothing short of baffling. That’s not to say there’s not good parts to ‘Antichrist’ and ‘Woman’, but there’s a large part of me that wishes for their debut EP, they simply hadn’t bothered with them.
An unsettling start, but there’s plenty of promise here.
6/10
The 1975’s EP ‘Facedown’ is out now on Dirty Hit.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7JE5LsDcCY[/youtube]
2 Responses
7th November 2012
[…] Facedown EP Sex EP With a series of two quick releases under their belts, the1975 have been building up their […]
5th April 2013
[…] touch after final touch onto their debut record. The Manchester band’s debut EP ‘Facedown’ (review here) gained them plays on the likes of Huw Stephens and Zane Lowe’s Radio1 playlists, as well as […]