Quick Before it Melts

Friday 25 September 2009

The hardest love has the coldest end

Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell have been The Big Pink since 2007 (and best buds for much longer than that).  They’ve been generating big buzz after signing with 4AD and winning an NME Shockwave Award for best new act earlier this year, and have now released their debut album A Brief History of Love.  I know this now, after having downloaded the LP and read up on these guys a bit before starting this post, but prior to acquiring the disc, I was none the wiser about this band.

What drew me to the album was the ghostly image of a young girl on the cover, with eyes that appeared as if they were dead, set in a face and body that are most clearly alive.  It instantly reminded me of the poster for Eraserhead, the one with the equally spooky and grainy image of Jack Nance as Henry Spencer staring out at you, zombie-like, but yet with a real humanity.  I didn’t know if I ever really “got” the movie, but I did get a t-shirt with that image on it, because there was something in those eyes, some longing, yearning, something human inside a dream world.  Like being in love.  The girl on the cover has that look, too.  So when I read that Cordell calls A Brief History of Love an album that encompasses “every different aspect of love… the good, the bad, the boring, the exciting, the dreams, the nightmares, the whole thing,” the parallel with record and movie came a little closer.  There were a lot of nightmare-like elements to Eraserhead, and a lot of happier, more pleasant dream-like moments, too, but the dividing line between these two states was never very clear; the edges blurred and blended together.  I get that same feeling listening to tracks like the album’s opener, “Crystal Visions”, with its buzz-saw grind and underlying delicate melodies, or the downright infectious “Dominos”, whose lyrics hint at longing for love that doesn’t seem to exist.

There’s a hint of Glasvegas, 2008′s NME best new act winners, in the soaring ballad “A Brief History of Love”, but The Big Pink aren’t copycats: with a heavy dose of synths and electro beats, they’re just as much dance as they are dense and dark.  A Brief History of Love is the kind of grand, sweeping debut album that doesn’t come along very often, but when it does, it takes you on an emotional ride that may not always make sense, but definitely thrills you with every peak and valley.  One listen to The Big Pink, and you’ll be falling head over heels like dominos, too.

MP3: The Big Pink “Dominos”
Myspace: The Big Pink

Tweet

by J. Di Gioia | Comments Off

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under MP3. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.