Big Scary Monsters – 09 Dec 2022
One for the fans and the completionists (FFO: indie rock, hyperwave)
We Were Promised Jetpacks first roamed into my musical sphere around 2011. At that time, I was listening to In the Pit of My Stomach on a Microsoft Zune while driving around the westside of Syracuse, NY with my ex-girlfriend. This Scottish outfit was memorable for not disguising their accents while singing and having a clever name. (Clever names can paper over terrible music—I, for one, wish Imagine Dragons had imagined better dragons).
This memory serves as a grain of salt, as generally I’m not the biggest fan of indie music. However, I’m trying to go outside my comfort zone of shorter, louder, faster songs while reviewing for TGEFM.
To fully understand A Complete One-Eighty, we must discuss the Edinburgh outfit’s last LP, Enjoy the View. Released in Sep 2021, it boasts 10 tracks of the sound that WWPJ have curated over the last 18 years.
In the chorus to one of the songs (“Fat Chance”), singer Adam Thompson croons “I thought I had a fat chance / maybe one in a million / Did a complete one-eighty / Now I’m going the right way”. On this EP, WWPJ re-envisions four of their songs in a completely different way, which is a “complete one-eighty”. Clever, right?
If only the output was as good as the reference.
This six song EP can be broken up into two sections. In the first, WWPJ re-envisions three of their own tracks, while they bring in friends for remixes for the second section.
In the original, the synth on “Fat Chance” steers the ship while drummer Darren Lackie pushes the band along. In its new form, WWPJ uses arpeggiated chords, an ethereal synth and subdued drums to give a real coffee shop vibe to the track.
“If It Happens” sounds like the Strokes if Julian Casablancas’ father sent him to boarding school in Glasgow instead of the Swiss Alps on the original version. On this EP, WWPJ sucks out all of the song with overuse of synth and delay effects that sounds like a big bridge to nowhere.
“All That Glittered” was a slow burning rocker track that signals that WWPJ is building to a huge chorus that never comes. This is perhaps the only track on the EP that improves on the original, as WWPJ employs The Pixies’quiet/loud/quiet formula, juxtaposition forlorn acoustic strumming in the version with thunderous, distorted power chords in the verse.
The last three tracks are remixes of the songs from the same album. Atlanta indie rockers Manchester Orchestra slow down “If It Happens” to a somber crawl. Andy Monaghan, a member of WWPJ’s defunct peers Frightened Rabbit, drops the rollicking downstrokes of original “Never Ever Changes”, giving it a makeover for lite rock radio. Finally, electro-pop artist Zoe Graham transforms “Fat Chance” into a hyperwave jam for the Scottish rave scene.
It’s all certainly an interesting take on the band’s last release. If you’re a fan of WWPJ (or the artists or genres I’ve mentioned), it’s worth a listen. If you’re not, you’re probably better served checking out the originals.
Once hailing from the salty tundra of Syracuse, NY, Ben now calls the DC suburbs his home. He fell in love with punk after listening to Punk-O-Rama 3, Less Than Jake and MXPX in middle school. He loves to slam dance but is too large to stage dive.
When he’s not pretending to have exquisite musical taste, he’s raising two children, designing RPG products and practicing law. (Who knows if he’ll ever get the hang of it.)
