Album Review

Cymbals – Unlearn

• 16th May 2011

It all seemed quite promising.

All angular guitars and juttering indie overtones.

The sound of early Foals colliding with Silent Alarm era Bloc Party seems to ring out on this long player, the yelping vocal style in particular reminding me of Kele Okereke’s. These should all be good things.

And within the album I can hear a band that I would have had a brief obsession with, likely after catching them at the Barfly supporting some other up-and-coming hopeful young band that I had seen supporting The Rakes and been equally excited about for a month or so, I probably would have fondly invested my money in a couple of their 7″ singles before another band would catch my attention at another small sweatbox of a venue, but at least we would have shared that short time together.

Except that it is 2011 and not 2006.

My tastes have changed and I need more than this recycled sound from five years ago to appease my ear and cause a stir of passions, this isn’t to say that the songs or the band are particularly bad, there are a couple of decent tracks on here that made my ears prick up and take notice, but none of the tracks have a long lasting appeal and are usually quite forgettable, not once in repeated plays have I found myself singing one of the ten tracks, or even remembering how they go for any significant time beyond the duration of the song.

There is promise here.  And maybe it is already whipping up plenty of excitement amongst fans that have eagerly been awaiting this debut.

But I’m afraid that I’m gonna have to let the band down as gently as I can.

I’m sorry, Cymbals.

It’s not you, it’s me.