Album Reviews – We Were Promised Jetpacks’ “These Four Walls”
Artist: We Were Promised Jetpacks
Album: These Four Walls
Label: Fat Cat Records
Release Date: June 15, 2009
Decision: 3/5 Promising If Uneven Debut
Influences I Notice: U2, Explosions in the Sky,
Favorite Tunes: “Quiet Little Voices”, “Moving Clocks Run Slow”
1. The Album
We Were Promised Jetpacks is a band from Edinburgh, Scotland. These Four Walls is their debut album and it is quite impressive. Like most indie label debuts it has a very simple production but it is hidden by a very complex sound from the band.
From the very first track, “It’s Thunder and Lightning”, you can hear the repetitive beats of post-rock bands like Explosions in the Sky. Combine this with vocal stylings that remind me of Bono from U2 and you have a promising debut from a young band.
Unfortunately, the early songs in the album might cause one to stop listening. At first the post-rock beats are missing the chord progression changes that traditionally define the genre. The vocals also don’t become expressive until a couple of songs into the album. This causes the band to sound boring and makes those first two songs tedious to get through. But once you get over that initial hump, I promise you that the album picks up and you have an exciting rest of the album. And when you get to “Quiet Little Voices” the album just takes off.
2. The Decision 3/5
An uneven first album but when the band gets the combination of post-rock style and bombastic vocals just right it reaches new heights and makes me excited for their next release.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ZhBAylbN4]
