ALBUM REVIEW: Towns 'Get By' - GigslutzGigslutz

This month, we celebrated the 20^th anniversary of Oasis´ debut single; an essential track in the aftermath of Cobain´s suicide and the decline of grunge, it marked – along with the likes of Blur, Suede, The Verve or Pulp – the return of British music to a massive worldwide audience. A comeback in a socio-cultural movement called Brit Pop. The celebration of cool Britannia in a movement – tired of beats – that absorbed ’60s guitar pop music, The Smiths´ melancholia, and The Stone Roses´ pop-like psychedelia, blended with vestiges of glam and shoegazing´s cacophony. The rest is just pure and anecdotal history.

Here we have the sons and heirs of those legendary years that uplift the six stings over synthesizers and electronic textures. They call themselves Towns, they come from Bristol – the land of trip–hop– and they are mad about pop music but hidden in unreachable walls of noise. Signed by independent label, Howling Owl Records, Towns are ready to shake the music scene. After an EP, videos that recall to Spacemen 3´s neo psychedelia and gigs across the country full of chaotic scenes and stage invasions, their debut album is finally ready.

‘Get By’ sounds delicate but massive; trashy but glamorous; violent but tender. The vocals are filled with a melancholia that takes us back to the ’90s, and the guitars pay their respects to the flawless sound of Bernard Butler, John Squire or Kevin Shields. Since their EP, Towns have probed their obsession with the wall of distortion and droning riffs: tracks like ‘Stop Dreaming’ and ‘Sleepwalking’, are sassy homages to My Bloody Valentine or Slowdive, while ‘Dig Your Hells’ borrows Sonic Youth´s American hysteria.

Besides the histrionic similarities with Brett Anderson of Towns´ skinny vocalist, in Get By, if you listen to tracks like ‘Marble Out’, you cannot stop thinking in Suede’s glam-like guitars and pop melodies. And other tracks like ‘Young At Heart’ are just pure nostalgia from the ’90s. ‘Just Everything’, is a brilliant track with its monotonous drumbeat and druggy evocative guitars enriched with a velvety voice. But it is in “Get Me There” where Towns pretend to be a bit more adventurous: walls of noise, a Jon Squire-like guitar with a vocal melody that praises Shaun Ryder’s heritage.

The future for Towns is promising; Get By offers a straight pop-like nostalgic feeling encapsulated in fences of droning noise and shoegaze – if you like My Bloody Valentine, this is for you. The odds say that we will hear a lot about them in these times where synthesizers are preferred over guitars. They are ready to become something important. We will put them on the wish list hoping that they can prove that they are not just a cheap imitation from their predecessors. It seems that Temples has a strong contender that eloquently waves the flag of as British pop revivalists.

‘Get By’ will see the light on 2^nd June.

Alejandro De Luna

@thesenseofdoubt

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Alejandro De Luna

Founder & Editor @ TSOD (thesenseofdoubt.com) and obsessed with the possibilities of recorded noise as a tool to squeeze your skull. Wish we were in 1977...