Album Review: The Maccabees – Colour it in

ukevents.net · Joined: 15 Dec 2003 Posts: 2517

The Maccabees – Colour it in

South London romantics the Maccabees aren’t your standard band. The fact that they’re named after a Jewish Revolutionary movement is evidence enough, even before your ears are exposed to their quirky unique sound and flashback enticing lyrics. If Salvador Dahli created music instead of painting a barrage of melting clocks then this would be the result. The Maccabees have certainly taken their artistic time coming to the attention of anyone with an ounce of tasteful music knowledge. Their debut album has been two years in waiting since first single ‘X-Ray’ was released in 2005. But since then Orlando Weeks et al have formed a hardcore fan base that are so devoted the formula Maccabees + live venue = riot has become common theory in the world of modern day mathematics.
The entire album is full of childhood memories, and unless you were born in the days when dinosaurs regularly interrupted ‘spear throwing classes’ then it’s almost impossible not to reminice the good old days with a spastic like smile on your face. ‘Lego’ addresses the frustration of not being able to build castles or robots because the blocks have been chewed and ‘Precious time’ pays reference to ‘super scalextric’. But for me the stand out track is ‘Latchmere’, all about Battersea’s (surely now famous) leisure centre and its automated wave machine. They’re quite possibly the only band in the world to write a whole song about a swimming pool, but oh how they nail it. With the ‘no bombing/no heavy petting/ verucca socks/ and stay in your lane’ I almost feel like I am there in my Speedo’s and thoughts of inferiority. My only disappointment (and it’s an exaggerated one at that) was the overlooking of a mandatory s*** floating around amid a chorus of screams. But maybe my local swimming baths were far more down market and blasé than its Latchmere counterpart? The whole album in fact could be the soundtrack to an English version of ‘The Wonder years’. Orlando even covers issues of young romance in ‘First love’ and more comically in ‘About your dress’ where he opens his heart about a disastrous first date when he not only burnt a hole in his companions clothes but vomited on her. The album is an absolute belter from the first line of opening track ‘Good old Bill’ where Orlando confesses regretfully ‘Spearmint Rhino has taken our money’ right up until the final vocals ‘and with heart shaped bruises and late night kisses devine’ from the irresistibly warming ‘Toothpaste Kisses’. Roughly 87.345% of the songs are single material and it’s rare for an album to have so many instantly catchy guitar hooks and melodies.
It maybe the type of music that is likely to get your head kicked in from mainstream hoodlums but f*** it, its quality. An unorthodox heavyweight contender for best debut of 2007… Well worth a pasting.

Written by Simon for UKEvents.net