Review Summary: "Your name becomes cosmic in my mind; rangeless, endless and my blood explodes."
Intellectual? Definitely. Pretentious? Maybe. But whatever, you can’t help but admire the sheer scale of ambition that this quartet of skinny indie kids exhibit. Not for them the well-trodden template of rock ‘n’ roll of typical dead-eyed, coked-up Oasis wannabes. In these times of plummeting CD sales with income mainly to be derived from live performances, TNP opt, perversely, uncompromisingly, for an orchestra sound of woodwind and brass, and choral chants, with little to no pandering to guitars and bass. You get the feeling that they're doing this for themselves, that they just don't care about how it is going to be received.
Take the album opener
Time Xone, a bassoon overture no less; a mournful, earthy elegy that summons us back to a time before language, a soundscape of primordial sludge that groans a lament for existence itself. But any notion that this is going to be a sleepy exercise in ornate classical grandeur is swiftly disabused, as the record changes tack dramatically with a cacophony of martial songs (
We Want War,
Three Thousand,
Attack Music and
Fire Power). With the subtle infusion of middle eastern strings, the sound of unsheathed swords and lyrics like “it was September, holy relic, this is attack music” and “this is a world attack”, the allusion to the current conflict between the western world and Iraq/Afghanistan is self-evident.
This full frontal aural assault unveils the tribal drums as the spine of the album, all belligerence and paranoia, around which the instruments and vocals are woven. TNP display a disdain for melody, for something as basic as a tune, preferring instead to build up and strip down layers of sound. The thin reedy voice of Jack Barnett acts as a contrast to the harsh diatribe of the percussion, a fragile counterpoint that intriguingly postulates a dichotomy of ideas: nature (trees, marsh, rivers) and civilisation (plastic, concrete, wires); religion and paganism; body and spirit; human and animal; music and language (“music awakes, my words evaporate”).
The album draws to a close, much more serene, almost contemplative, with the reflective beauty of
White Chords, which actually has a melody to hold onto (at last!), and
5. It’s as if we have come full circle, emerging out of the earth (the past) to this war of human civilisation (the present) and yet transported blinking and wide-eyed in the celestial vastness of the stars (the future). “I don’t think the stars are symbols, but let’s find out” warbles Jack Barnett, as if there is some kind of pantheist transcendence available to us. Certainly he hints at a resolution of sorts being achieved here: “All the trees started to walk and all the rivers started to talk…but only through digital manipulation.”
Is this entertainment or is it art? Is it classical or pop? Orchestral or industrial? Baroque or minimalist? The originality of the individual elements on show isn’t really the issue. TNP happily acknowledge the influence of classical composers such as Edward Elgar, Benjamin Britten, Richard Rodney Bennett and Steve Reich. But at the same time there lurks the shadow of pop stars such as Bjork, Thom Yorke, Damon Albarn and M.I.A. Amidst this heady maelstrom, what is most startling is TNP’s readiness to assert the role of the artist to ask questions. What the answers are, well, that’s up to you.
