this town needs guns - animals (album review)

This Town Needs Guns have come a long way since I took photos of them at Water Rats early last year, supporting Anathallo. They have their first full length album out, and it's fantastic. It's called Animals.


Sure, their brand of guitar-noodle-tapping-vocals-dancing-all-over-the-place-time-signature-destroying music won't immediately be to everyone's liking, but with mastery of melody and a well thought out structure, beautiful flurries of dancy hooks hold the album together from complete obscurity. As a fan of Kinsella-oriented bands I find this album rich with a similar kind of musical exploration, though I found it hard to decide whether having slow hand claps at the ending of 'Pig' is a reference or a rip off of the end of Owls' 'Holy Fucking Ghost'. The guitar playing, particularly on 'Baboon' is intense, Tim Collis can sure tap. Fortunately instead of being irritating or excessive, the plinky-plonky guitars make This Town Needs Guns the band they are - impressive and full of clever [counter]melodies. The other band members are also very talented, the complex drum parts changing time sig. multiple times during any given song, the pitch-perfect frontman with an Oxford English Accent, and the [oft described as] boogie-ing basslines giving the songs a sort of danceability. The album isn't flawless, and I think a few listens are required by all, to fully appreciate Animals. After my few listens, I came to the conclusion that 'Panda' and 'Dog' [and to an extent 'Quetzal', but this can be forgiven and dismissed as a 30 second 'interlude'] lack a hook on the same scale as the other songs, which really is what drives the album. It seems the songs do the same thing as the others, but less well, less catchily? Also, a gimmick of the album seems to be starting almost every full length song with the same crash cymbal, going into the groove instantly. Uncheck Panda, Elk, Quetzal, Crocodile and Zebra in your iTunes and play the first second of the other tracks in succession, you'll see what I mean.
High points of the album for me include the instrumental 'Elk', in which [now ex] bass player Dan Adams plays the melody on trumpet. It is TTNG's equivalent of the 'Last Post', solemn and triumphant. Despite being arguably the least 'experimental' track, 4/4 time, regular chord patterns and predictable cadences, it is certainly the track which gave me the biggest emotional response. The texture is thin, the most part is just guitar with the trumpet solo on top, yet the strange familiarity of the song [speaking from a classically trained background/also a fan of trumpet-toting American Football might be a factor?] definitely provoked something in me, almost got teary listening to it. Other high points include vocals in 'Crocodile', all of 'Baboon', the catchy singalong chorus of 'Lemur', and all of 'Chinchilla' which is a perfect opener to the album, and sums up the record in it's entirety.
There's plenty more I could say about Animals, but I could say plenty on anything, so I'll leave you with that and hope that if you're 'into that sort of thing', then a few listens through 'Animals' will leave you wanting a few more. Go buy the CD? Or maybe a vinyl? Perhaps check their website or myspace page?
A good day to all.