Review Summary: Don't bore us, get to the chorus!
Bursting to life like they're the living embodiment of the famous Berry Gordy Jr. quote, Spiritual Cramp are here to get sh*t done - every track on their debut album is a sub-3m banger (save 'Catch a Hot One' which squeaks in 9s over that mark), with enough syncopated riffs and sticky melodies to please any fan of syncopated guitar indie circa 2008. It's extremely catchy, well performed, sounds REALLY slick but not overproduced and has enough punk-rock energy to make you forgo your morning espresso shot, with little sprinkles of reggae and dub throughout to keep things interesting. It also, crucially, doesn't overstay its welcome and leaves you wanting more (though, some advice…if, like me, you want to extend your run-time then why not add the excellent 'Phone Lines Down' to your song queue and create a choose-your-own-adventure album? Thank me later).
So what's the problem?
Well, first of all, the lyrics need work - song-to-song, there's simply too much repetition as I can only take a few "slow it down x 4's" or "stressed out x 3's" on a lyric sheet before I start to get a bit bored. This issue also hangs at a macro level over the whole project as songs seem to be themed like mini-movie soundtracks which flirt between apocalyptic imagery of riot cops and burning buildings ('Blowback' / 'City on Fire'), or hedonistic character studies ('Better Off This Way' / 'Clashing at the Party') with only minor variations in between. This is all fine at first, but as every song blurs into one thematically and the repetition starts to set in, it becomes clear that the band are drawing inspiration from a small well and could have done with tackling a wider range of subjects.
Which is why the one notable exception, the bittersweet 'Herberts on Holiday', stands out like a sore thumb. Supposedly written by lead singer Michael Bingham about his wife, the lyrics work beautifully here as he sings plaintively "if I'm being honest | if I'm being true | I don't know where I would be | if I'd never met you". There's an aching vulnerability to this song that sounds truer than anything else on the album by virtue of being different, and I wish there were more of these moments across the record's runtime.
It also acts as a lovely palette cleanser after excellent lead single 'Talkin' on the Internet', which highlights another of the records problems - outside these two tracks, the album in general suffers from poor sequencing. Too often, songs are sandwiched together to create a jarring déjÃ* vu effect, like the opening 1-2 hit of 'Blowback' and 'Slick Rick' with their fixation on credit cards, or the Police-influences on 'City on Fire' and 'Clashing at the Party'. These songs are excellent individually, and would have been far more effective had they been separated. I also cannot understand why they didn't finish on the PERFECT closer (barnburner 'Can I Borrow Your Lighter?'), and instead choose the slightly insipid 'Addict' to close out the set.
There's a great little album buried in here somewhere, and as debuts go it kicks more *ss than you'd expect given its diminutive size - it'll do for now but, based on the strength of their other stand-alone singles and provided they can fix some of the issues above, I believe they'll deliver something truly special on their sophomore.
