NEW ON CD
COURTESY OF RCA
The guys, from left, Dan Fisher, Tom Bellamy, Ben Gautrey, Kieran Mahon, Didz Hammond and Jon Harper.
English sextet is seeking
success in America
"Kick Up the Fire, and Let the Flames Break Loose"The Cooper Temple Clause (RCA)
"We don't want to just flirt with America. We want to shag it."
That confident remark from the mouth of Tom Bellamy, of the Cooper Temple Clause, an English sextet that wants to do to the good ol' USA what it's done with great success back home.
The band's in the midst of a national mainland tour this month, giving audiences a taste of their wide-ranging palette of sounds that veer from early Pink Floyd-era prog rock to Radiohead soundscapes to Aphex Twin-ish beats -- all usually in the same song, particularly in the ambitious (if also self-indulgent) 10-minute album closer, "Written Apology."
While songs like that one makes for a game of "name that influence" when listening to the remaining studio tracks on this, their second album (but American debut), it's easier for me to hear the buzz surrounding the Cooper Temple Clause on the bonus live cuts "Been Training Dogs" and "Did You Miss Me?"
The band confidently wends its way through the sonic contrasts of, on the latter song, tinkly electronica to the concluding roar of unfettered noise.
When the band keeps things relatively simple and decides to stick to one style (namely rock), songs like the aforementioned "Dogs," the album's leadoff single/video "Promises, Promises," "New Toys" (with singer Ben Gautrey doing his most appealing vocal on the album), "Blind Pilots" and the meditative "In Your Prime" work well.
But since they insist on shamelessly cribbing from their musical influences, I find those songs more hit-or-miss, with "miss" just edging out "hit." Even though it gets a bit blustery at times ("Music Box," in particular), bold steps in the forms of "Talking to a Brick Wall" and especially the relentless "A.I.M." show that the Cooper Temple Clause, with time, could make a more convincing case for their shape-shifting sound.
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