Take that! And that, and that, and that, and that, and that and that! And that! In quick succession, hard, repeatedly. And thus you already understand every last one of the 33 minutes on The Futureheads’ debut album. Only of course the name is a misnomer, nothing futuristic about them at all, the contents of their skulls or any other part of their juddering hyperactive bodies for that matter. But The Retroheads is a rubbish name. No prizes for guessing which decade is given the sharp going over here either. But these aren’t charges being levelled against them, we’ve not really heard a single one of the current crop of 80s new-wave bandits (and we’re sure you’ll agree there are too many to name) using anywhere near this many dynamics, tunes or aural left-hooks.
Opener ‘Le Garage’ might not sow things up immediately – there is much better still to come – but from the off, and in all of 1 minutes and 40 seconds, they’ve marked out their territory as a place where Jam attitude, elastic harmonies, taut garage guitars and XTC colourings are order of the day and combine into something really quite beautifully nasty. It’s the brutal, larger than life harmonies that make the record though, never far behind Barry Hyde’s tight projected lead, lurking in the shadows in heavy overcoats, carrying the hooks solidly on their shoulders.
‘Danger Of The Water’ will show you, harsh intoxicating Northern barbershop warmth that grates towards a paranoid crescendo without even relying on the lump-hammer rhythms that work so well elsewhere. On ‘Carnival Kids’ and ‘Robot’ there’s a brogue vocal twang that reminds us strangely of The Proclaimers, but when the former even throws in a dash of ball-clenching Beach Boys it’s best just to accept it as a work of dark, twisted pop, and not question any untoward influences. Even the most severe and bleak moments, take ‘The City Is Here For You To See’ and ‘A to B’, have an intense magnetism that you happily can’t draw away from. One of the best tracks, ‘Meantime’, is like The Cure at playtime and immense fun. Punishing and engaging, all of it. Take that! And party hard.