Album Review

The Automatic – Tear Down The Signs

• 7th Mar 2010

The Automatic are sometimes mistaken for a one-trick pony. If you’re still in this school of thought, you need to get your hands on ‘Tear the Signs Down’, the band’s third album. It’s been four years since they stormed the charts with ‘Monster’,and this release reflects just how much the band have grown up since then.

While the music is still brimming with the characteristic exuberance existing fans will expect, their latest offering clearly exposes the band’s more serious side (people often fail to realise that ‘Monster’ actually tackles the subject of substance abuse). There’s more power and more grit, but enough synth to echo the style of first album ‘Not Accepted Anywhere’. This could be down to the fact that this is the band’s first album entirely written by the current line-up; newest member Paul’s roots in Yourcodenameis:Milo are detectable here, in the urgency of the vocals.

‘Cannot be Saved’ is the track most easily identifable as The Automatic, with distinctive vocals, crashing guitars and furious drumbeat – and the relentless repetition that will have you singing along before you’ve heard the whole song through once.

Ten long months went into recording this album, but less than ten minutes in you’ll realise how much this band have progressed – and how much potential they still have.