Serafin
No Push Collide

THE REVIEW

Describe your music in three words. Ben F. replies: "Totally amazing and fantastic". From a May interview with the BBC. He's right, it's the best and most appropriate description. When it comes to defining where the band comes from, the first problems arise. Ben Fox Smith (guitar and vocals) is from London, Ben Ellis (bass) is Scottish, while Darryn Harkness (guitar) and Ronnie Growler (drums) are from New Zealand. They are from hmm… Bristol. At least the NME says they are based in Bristol.

This is their first album, produced by David Sardy (Helmet, Marilyn Manson, System of A Down, RATM, Bush, Supergrass). They play indie pop with a crooked edge with occasional explosions of anger, serene anger where voice and guitars meld together. "Stephen’s in the Sky" is the opening track, starting with an arpeggio, the nonchalant voice that at times sinks into the distortions and effects of the guitars. In "Day By Day", it sounds like Brian Molko, while the guitars converse; "Things Fall Apart" is perhaps the most carefree episode but also the weakest with Beach Boys-like harmonies "californian girlfriend I am calling from the end", with Darryn doing the backing vocals. Almost college-pop.

But the masterpiece is "Numerical". This one really gets me going. It starts with detached jerks à la Helmet. Softer. “I must accept progression lose inept depression”. Then it takes countless directions, changing tempo. And in the chorus, I feel like rolling on the floor, diving into the wall: " ‘cos-I-don’t-see-as-in-my-soul, I'd call it numerical". It has that thing that grabs your spine and releases endorphins. I don't see the sense in the lyrics, but the second guitar twists into a hook, a repeated riff slightly slower than the main tempo and regularly rises by an octave, screaming. And it starts again. The songs are simple, the complete lyrics are repeated twice and then they end, but "Numerical" seems to last much longer than its 3:40 length. It could last forever. At times, it feels like hearing Cobain's anger. Ben F.’s voice, however, maintains its own character, beyond the examples I give for simplicity.

A beautiful indie-pop as I understand it, with some calmer moments, in "Peaches From Spain" it sounds like Thom Yorke, but then you remember the verse: "oh my God your house is so full of pain, you can ask me if you are insane...and there's nothing like you around, you are a sound". And as a final reference, I mention Catherine Wheel, for those who lived through the wonderful year 1991.

From the CD booklet: :"...fear of the demonstrably fatal institutions for which, in our suicidal loyalty, we are ready to kill and die. Fear of the Great Men whom we have raised, by popular acclaim to a power which they use, inevitably, to murder and enslave us. Fear of the War we don’t want and yet do everything we can to bring about". From Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley