We Are Scientists : Brain Thrust Mastery

I guess I usually expect a band’s second album to be a step forward in the same direction, a maturing, if you will, of the tracks recorded and toured from the first album. I’m not saying that it should be that way – it’s just what I have come to expect over the years. My expectations are then either met, leaving me with my beaming happy face, or shot down leaving me deflated and unable to comprehend why I spent any time on this band in the first place.
Cut and dry, black and white, not a lot of grey area.

There is however this other reaction that I have come to yearn for from second albums and it’s that of surprise. Its when, on that first listen I can’t quite get my head around how they made this record after hearing the first. Like it’s a complete departure from the music I had anticipated and eagerly waited for, but yet something inside tells me my soul is still getting fed, and it’ll be just a little more time before my head catches up and realizes why.

It’s that bit there that I have come to yearn; the bit where I know I like it, but have no idea why, or quite how much. I like the finding out part.

‘We get it B, move it along’.

OK.

we are scientists 296×300 The Dutchie SessionsSo the latest band to do this wonderful thing to me and on quite a large scale actually, is We Are Scientists. What started as a US, 3 piece rock band created one of the most easily likeable records ever for me. It was around the same time we were being force fed Franz Ferdinand and The Arctic Monkeys, that We Are Scientists gave us ‘With Love And Squalor’ in 2005. It held a little more for me, it was simple, it was rockin’, you could relate to pretty much any track lyrically, and it felt very honest. Simple, spiky rock-riffs and crunchy delayed guitar effects, backed by solid, melodic, bass lines and held down with an almost signature drum sound. It’s a good recipe for any rock record if you ask me. A couple of visits to different venues see them play, cemented We Are Scientists as one of my top 5 acts to see live, partly due to the stand up comedy routine gig-goers are treated to between songs. Any search on Google will result in a promo video of some form, showcasing their humor, which for an American band is quite British, and really very funny.

So it’s a good package, great album, good live act, good promo… I’m in, what’s next?

Well, what’s next pretty much freaked me out if I’m honest. Really, I just wasn’t expecting what I heard. I should explain at this point drummer Michael Tapper quit the band somewhere between making the first album and the second, and the band continued using hired musicians but were now essentially a two man band. I imagine this to be the catalyst of what was to follow in the studio. The departure of the signature drum sound Tapper brought to the band enabled the remaining members Keith Murray and Chris Cain to create what ever they wanted.

And create they did.

My first hearing of anything from the new album was on the radio, the first single release from 2008’s  ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ was ‘After Hours’, an upbeat melancholy acoustic treat, lamenting a love for those early morning post-party hours, when you just hope it will be as good tomorrow night. No departure lyrically – the sad part of good times, but the music is immediately more shiny.

So I figure, OK, a mellowing & maturing.

Errr…No.

Whilst the lyrics still have the same simple subject matter us mere humans can relate to, the music has upped and crash landed in a studio on Mars…in the 80’s, no less, and has inflated itself with keyboards, extra guitars and even, ladies and gentlemen, on one track, what I believe to be a real life, 80’s cheesy Sax. All this with a knob on the mixing desk, labeled ’shiny sprinkles’, turned right up, and another knob labeled ‘Dirt’ just up past the half way mark.

It took me some time but I love this album. It sounds like a completely different band dishing out the same honesty. A musical departure, yes, but one that has twisted and turned me in every direction in my quest to form an objective opinion for myself. I always said I’d listen to anything that made me feel anything, obviously anything inducing nausea, vomiting or a bad taste in the mouth would be turned off pretty rapidly, but this album gives you a million reasons to keep listening and not one that I can think of to turn it off. It feels good.

I don’t know whether you will like it, but I know one thing for sure, I’m really looking forward to seeing what they do with their next album.