The Long Blondes - Couples

MOGstars 8 out of 10Emerging at the end of 2006 with debut album Someone to Drive You Home, The Long Blondes were one of the first of a slew of bands to emerge from the UK with a heavily retro-tinged sound. The record exploded with sixties styled guitar pop that combined youthful abandon with a wry and knowing sense of humour. 18 months later and things have changed a fair bit for the band – two inter-group couples have broken up and lead singer Kate Jackson has climbed into the NME’s Top Ten of Cool. Stylistically, the band have under gone a renovation too, the exuberance has receded and been replaced with pop-nihilism. Yet all the familiar standards still remain and the tales of urban heartbreak and infidelity wittily expressed with a sly smile, even if the jaded cynicism is more pointed.Opening track Century draws has its roots not in sixties chic familiar to the first album, but rather the electronica of the early eighties. The synths and falsetto immediately cause Donna Summer to spring to mind, however this new wave direction is coloured with a dystopian slide into a third world war. At times scintillatingly jarring but also haunting, this is an unexpected direction for the band, but as Jackson ponders nuclear oblivion the result is disarming yet engaging.Equally unexpected but also intoxicating is subdued revenge song Too Clever By Half. In an album dominated by infidelity, it is surprising to see the victim portrayed, however Jackson’s haunting reproach sounds more like a lover dusting the prints of the revolver than one dropping a bunny in hot water. “As you were making plans/I was going with her man” she croons coyly over an almost non-existent backing – a scene of revenge just waiting to be transformed into black and white celluloid.Just as cinematic is Round The Hairpin, a track where minimalist impulses have carried the band away. There is little music to speak of, save the hum of a distorted amp and an occasion drum beat rearing its head. The lyrics too are about as stripped back as you can get, a single verse repeated sombrely. It is easy to visualise the implied calamity, the lack of detail adding a charm to the song, while the ambiguity pulls at the imagination. Beguiling and beautiful, this unexpected turn fortunately doesn’t end up like the car crash it speaks about.Couples represents a reassuring return to form for The Long Blondes second outing. It is a record that takes risks, largely departing from the sound that dominated their debut into unmapped territory, and whilst some risks don’t pay off (the B-movie snippets framing some songs are a little ill-advised) most are rewarding. That said, the album is unmistakably a Long Blondes record, the cynical love songs fitting nicely alongside the more disenchanted moments of Someone to Drive You Home; “Close your eyes and think of Erin O’Connor/ And I’ll Think of Lilly Cole/ And that your someone else as well” leaves a particularly bitter sting; present as ever is the ready wit of chief lyricist Dorian Cox, with lines and story telling that puts the listener in mind of Sheffield’s most famous art-rocker, Jarvis Cocker. Clearly channelling Pulp, not to mention South Yorkshire’s other electronic stars The Human League, the band have crafted an irresistible blend of worldly heartbreak and youthful wistfulness. At times Jackson plays the street-wise and glamorous vixen, others (especially I Liked The Boys) she becomes the gin-soaked older woman longing for lost youth – both scenarios are equally pleasing to the ear. By stepping away from their comfort zone, The Long Blondes have avoided the often precipitous sophomore slump – their sound has been modified but their spirit remains the same. And that spirit is one of glamour and grit juxtaposed, and it has resulted in an album just as suited to the dingy discos and regretful mornings after as the illicit affairs it describes are.