LATE OF THE PIER – The Bears Are Coming
Posted by AlMachine on Friday, April 11, 2008


For a band that has been engulfed by plaudits and praise from every discernible angle, why is it that there’s something about Late Of The Pier that just makes me go “meh…” every time I hear their music?

Sure, they’ve got the looks, the image, the right producer (Erol Alkan’s behind the decks here) as well as a sizeable following both locally and in the capital it seems. Bearing all of that in mind, who or why could anyone ask for more? Well, to me it’s simple. While there may be a hint of inventiveness with songs like ‘The Bears Are Coming’, which at least dares to veer away from the beaten track on at least more than one occasion, there’s something almost too lavish, too sceney, and inevitably quite fake masquerading throughout the whole shebang.

Sounding more and more like Klaxons if they’d been brought up on post-rock rather than 90s Eurobeat with every release, ‘The Bears Are Coming’ suffers more than anything from the lack of any real tune emerging from within its semi-progressive confines, and yet by the same token, there is something nagging away here that somehow tells me Late Of The Pier will make a great record one day.

Sadly, this isn’t it.

6/10

Dom Gourlay



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