The Young Knives - 'Up All Night'
Fish-hooks have an extra backwards barb at the pointy end, which keeps the hook from coming loose from the fish's mouth as it leaps and jerks to try and escape the angler's net. Arrow-heads work on a fairly similar principle, only instead of making sure an ensnared animal can't escape, the idea is that you've gone to a lot of time and effort to put what is essintially a sharp stick into something (or someone, back in the dark days of yore), why not go the whole hog and make sure it also causes the maximum amount of damage when removed?
Young Knives songs work according to very similar principles. They seek you out, camouflaging themselves as run-of-the-mill indie - Franz Ferdinand played by the Pigeon Detectives - so that you don't see the threat. Without even realising what you're doing, they lull you into exposing your most vulnerable areas. After all, what kind of damage could be caused by such a cute little thi...
BANG! There's the first hit, the song penetrates the brain. Something about Henry Dartnell's voice, his dispassionate passion, the blank-eyed violence with which he politely sings "what's the point?" three times, is causing a swelling in your cerebral cortex. You realise you're in trouble.
BANG! Oh no! A second blow! These tweed-coated ear-hunters aren't desperately trying to get into the cool circles, or humbly glad that the nation's tastemakers are allowing their music a platform. They're actually demanding their own space on their own terms, and pretty forcefully too. What gall! What bravado!
And if this song is anything to go by, they're overturning the punk credo - that anyone can be in a band (anyone who looks a certain way and acts a certain way, that is) - and now it seems that the private rock 'n' roll sexy party has been gatecrashed by locals with a brace of pheasants under one arm and a flying V under the other.
And it's only when you attempt to back away that you discover exactly how much trouble you're in. Because the barbed humour, the jagged fretwork and the sharp attitude are all taking their toll. You can either pull the song out and risk serious internal bleeding or leave it where it lies and surrender to the inevitable.
Face it, we're all just another notch on the collective Young Knives bow - a device which is now so riddled with whittle-marks it's more of a toothpick than a weapon. Still deadly accurate though...
Docked one star for not quite being as compelling and scary as their last single 'Terra Firma'. Which is no criticism at all, really.
Download: Out now
CD Released: February 25th
(Fraser McAlpine)
PS: There's a potted history of the band on the , in which they are referred to - brilliantly - as "bespeckled indie nerds". Nerds they may be, indie they most certainly are...but 'bespeckled'? I guess tweed is kind of spotty, now you come to mention it...
Comments
I am a huge fan of indie rock, it's my saviour considering I have a bad relationship with mainstream music, but this track has done nothing for me.
It sounds extremely similar to a few songs floating around at the moment and I feel the whole 'geek' thing is being overdone. But to give them credit, they're actually the best geeks I've seen so far and have shown the 'geek scenesters' how it's done.
Sadly, We Are Scientists are my only dorks :) and they managed to make a song which sounded different (After Hours is genius)
That's all I wanted to say x
[And very welcome it is too! - Fraser]