Image from a poster for LanChile Airlines, 1968
Several years ago, I fell in love with a song called "100,000 Thoughts" - it was by Tap Tap, a solo project of UK songwriter Tom Sanders, who'd released a fun little album through micro-indie label Catbird Records. Sanders' creaky voice and urgent ukulele strums were a compelling combination (this was before there were a million creaky-voiced ukulele-strummers). I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Tap Tap was a side project and that Sanders' main gig was with Reading-based band Pete & the Pirates - as it turned out Pete & the Pirates' debut record Little Death was a more rock-oriented version of Tap Tap's quirky indie-pop, and the combination worked really well for me.
Pete & the Pirates' new one One Thousand Pictures picks up where Little Death left off, expanding on that Clap-Your-Hands-Say-Yeah-meets-Franz-Ferdinand sound with some nice loudQUIETloud dynamics and interesting sonic textures. The lyrics are still a weak link in some of the songs but show some improvement, and Sanders' knack for big chorus hooks still pays off on songs like "Come to the Bar", "Washing Powder", and "Blood Gets Thin". The album picks up momentum as it goes along, too, with several highlights deep in the lineup, including the bouncy single "United" and the sweet album-closer "Half Moon Street".
It seems like only certain UK indie bands get a big push in the US market (even online), which sometimes leaves me with the mistaken impression that there's nothing going on across the pond worth investigating, so it's nice to find less-heralded bands like Pete & the Pirates making appealing, low-key rock albums that don't get any press over here.
"United" by Pete & the Pirates
1 comments:
Excellent! This pushes all my buttons. A little like the Pixies with the edges sanded off a bit. I had never heard of these guys but I'll definitely check the album out now.
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