Videos

We Are Scientists – Nice Guys

• 5th May 2010

“Nice Guys” is the second single to be taken from “Barbara” preceding the album by a week; released on 7th June.

Directed by Chris himself, here is the rather wonderful DIY video.

2010 brings an exciting surprise to fans of beat-driven, melody-wrapped, harmony-draped, lyrically-savvy, New York-originating, We Are Scientists-branded rock music: a new record from New York-originating We Are Scientists.

This one, their third major release, is called Barbara, and it's as good as the name itself suggests: if you were to give the songs letter grades, they'd all be As and Bs, and the occasional R; (Restricted: not for general audiences).

Longtime We Are Scientists listeners will hear a record that resembles debut With Love & Squalor in its tendency to sound like three guys playing and singing and drinking and, very occasionally, cussing. Recent converts will appreciate the continuation of melodic and lyrical trends begun on Record 2, Brain Thrust Mastery.

But Barbara has a flavor all its own, and it's borne of a couple years extra hair on the chest(s), plus a brand new set of hands & feet behind the drum kit in the shape of Master Andy Burrows (ex-Razorlight). An old drinking and chatting pal whose periodic crossing of WAS's path always meant celebration, Burrows's departure from his previous band stung Keith and Chris's nostrils like squid blood stings a shark's rough plastic nostrils. (Fuck you: we know squids don't have blood. Sharks don't know that, though. Sharks smell Squid Garlic Gel and they think, Blood!??, which is shark for, I smell something other than my own rough plastic.) Bringing Burrows behind the kit meant more for Keith and Chris than finally, after years of British touring, learning to understand the accent. It meant rehearsals and recording in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Athens, Georgia. And it meant figuring out rock songs with one of the best colored-hair rock drummers sitting behind a kit.

The results represent W.A.S.'s finest work in their ten years. From early singles Rules Don't Stop and Nice Guys, each a brutally efficient pop reduction, to expansive harmonic adventures Pittsburgh and Foreign Kicks, Barbara disappoints in only one important way: it pushes a radically conservative, old-fashioned point of view on race, gender, and religious issues.

Keith and Chris have also announced a selection of regional shows in the run up to Glastonbury Festival at the end of June – see below for all UK live dates.

UK LIVE SHOWS
JUNE
21 – Junction, Cambridge
22 – Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton
24 – Leadmill, Sheffield
25 – O2 Academy, Oxford
27 – Glastonbury Festival

JULY
09 – T In The Park, Kinross, Scotland

AUGUST
27 – Leeds Festival
28 – Reading Festival