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Rating: There is a musical genre that I really love. Baroque Pop. Well, you're still here: you want to read something. I won't dwell too much on explanations that you'll contest in a pseudo-scientific manner; Baroque Pop is something that recalls the '60s, the pre-MTV era; the more "cultured" classical instrumentation, the more "plebeian" modern melodies. It's a type of music to sing sometimes with vigor, sometimes with a whisper. And I like it, amen. I don't expect everyone to fully understand.
I don't like the Arctic Monkeys, and I wouldn't have imagined that such a tasty piece could have emerged from one of them.
The Age of Modesty (a very free translation) should, in my opinion, be taken quite literally. Without lacking strong hues, it's an escape from rock that is edgy and rebellious, so proudly flaunted these days. It is the descendant (with a parent found in certain semi-unknown productions of the '90s) of an already faded period, the period of the warm brownish hues: The Golden '60s.
It's a project that appeals to young people like me because it's totally alternative (Damn, it's alternative stuff, it's cool! It's cool!), but (personal experience) also to dads who have fond memories of the Beatles and Beach Boys.
I then claim the right to believe in the best intentions of the British duo in producing this record: again, we have excellent material.
We have a rhythm that evokes the wild battles between cowboys and Indians, with those riffs even dear to spy music (the '60s, no less).
The compositions don't differ much from each other, yet each has a story of its own to tell. And it does so very directly, almost one-on-one. More of a singer-songwriter style than that of a rock band.
To be honest, I also notice a respectable instrumental ensemble: strings, brass, organ, and various effects not even that distant from the era of great British pop.
Dreamy, intense, virile, and at times dark, "The Age of Understatement" is a record where our puppets seem to become aware of their personal and artistic maturation; and I add: it's an album that hits like a rapier in a contemporary English scene today perhaps very overrated, in some respects.
Is it the start of something? We'll have to see the sales of the next record, in my opinion. Do we want to be provocative?
"The Age of Understatement" is a reactionary album. And I don't even think it's that unpopular.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 The Age of the Understatement (03:07)
Decided to sneak off away from your stomach
And try your pulse
They captured what seemed all unknowing
And candid but they suspected it
Was false
She's playful,
The boring would warn you
Be careful of her brigade
In order to tame this relentless marauder
Move away from the parade
She was walking on the tables
In the glasshouse,
Endearingly bedraggled in the wind,
Subtle in her method of seduction,
Twenty little tragedies begin
And she would throw her feather-boa in the road,
If she thought that it would set the scene,
Unfittingly dipped into your companions
Enlightened them to make you seeth
There's affection to rent,
The age of the understatement
Before the attraction ferments
Kiss me properly and pull me apart
There's affection to rent,
The age of the understatement
Before the attraction ferments
Kiss me properly and pull me apart
My fingers scratch at my hair before my mind
Can get too reckless
The idea of seeing you here is enough to make
The sweat go cold
02 Standing Next to Me (02:18)
Want her,have her...Two years have gone now
but I can't relate to the never ending games that you play
As desire passes through
then you're open to the truth
I hope you understand
and your love is standing next to me,
is standing next to me.
The one you fell for makes it seem juvenile
And you'll laugh at yourself again and again
And we'll drink to the thought
she'll remember you maybe tomorrow
And your love is standing next to me
is standing next to me,
and your love is standing next to me
is standing next to me
Want her,have her...Two years have gone now
but I can't relate to the never ending games that you play
As desire passes through
then you're open to the truth
I hope you understand
and your love is standing next to me,
is standing next to me...
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