Turin Brakes – Dark On Fire

Carys Esseen

This album showcases an attempt at instrumental and stylistic experiment with an aim, so the press release says, to uncover the true purpose of making music. Well, the wanky preface to the record was helpful in so far as I knew straight away to expect pretentious lyrics and over-production – unfortunately that is exactly what I got. The title track “Dark On Fire” is haunting and floaty but lacks the lyrical and emotional substance to evoke even the same dramatic ethos as the album art. The instrumentation is disappointing and relies too heavily on glib, 90’s style guitar and drum patterns that are unexciting to say the least. There are, however, a couple of instances where they get it right. Track eight, “For The Fire”, will stay with you thanks to edgy rhythms and a stellar chorus and, in another vein, the sweeter sound of “Here Comes The Moon” provides a reminder of the beauty of Knights’ voice with a unique instance of perfect levels of instrumentation and chiming percussion. This album really cements Turin Brakes as the ‘lost boys’ of pop and, for the sake of their talent, I hope they find a credible sound. Soon.

: 10 Oct 2007 11:54 |  Tags: Carys Esseen Music Review Warwick Boar |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem