For The Cast of Cheers, the importance of this album cannot be understated. It’s the album on which they start really taking this whole ‘band’ thing seriously – they weren’t expecting the avalanche of word-of-mouth success that ‘Chariot’ brought them two years ago, but then again, neither was I, or anyone else for that matter. Also on this album is the audible sense that whether or not ‘Chariot’ happened, ‘Family’ would have come along anyway. It’s the sound of a band starting again, going right back to the drawing board and bettering what had gone before.
The band themselves would be the first to admit that this was exactly what they did whilst writing the album itself – songs they had already finished were gone back on and almost completely reworked – but if they had some improvements to make, it definitely shows, because ‘Family’ also displays the quartet’s penchant for perfectionism. They would have accepted nothing less than their best, and the same goes for ex-Clor frontman Luke Smith,who produced this album, something clearly reflected in its bright and polished sound that brings the band’s combined technical ability to the fore.
One thing ‘Family’ hints at above all is new beginnings. The record opens with frontman Conor Adams declaring his intentions: ‘I will need another home, I will need another family / I will need another loan.’ That song was written after the band relocated to London (a good move, with one major drawback that occurred last year, when the band awoke one morning in late August to find that some of their gear had been stolen), and is as forceful and punchy as you would expect from them. The record is not merely content to barrel along at a breakneck pace for 35 minutes, though. There are more reserved moments on offer, most notably the astonishingly confident ‘Marso Sava’, which shines the spotlight on just how good a drummer Kev Curran has become. His rhythms lend the song a summery playfulness, indicating that The Cast of Cheers have learned to lighten up.
While the ‘robot rock’ that characterised their debut sometimes came off as a little too serious for its own good – though ‘Goose’ has been given a new lease on life, reworked from its ‘Chariot’ version into one of the most bracingly brilliant moments in the band’s catalogue – the Dublin four-piece have embraced huge hooks this time around, presenting us with much poppier material (the dazzling second single ‘Animals’ and the amazingly catchy follow-up ‘Human Elevator’ could only come from a band who wear their pop smarts on their sleeve).
The title track is not the only song on which the lyrics discuss the life of a touring band, with the jerky and angular ‘Trucks at Night’ tackling the subject head-on in one of the album’s slightly less immediate moments, though this is of course made up for with an absolute belter of a chorus, before the group bow out with ‘They Call It A Race’. Having become the traditional set-closer at their gigs, it makes sure ‘Family’ finishes on a high note, even if it wonders ‘Is anybody else losing heart tonight?’. The Cast of Cheers certainly shouldn’t, that’s for sure. They’ve only gone and made what is the best album of its kind this year, their spiky post-punk template updated and given enough polish so that it sounds like TCOC MK II. No need for reinvention, though: while these songs are only the next step on what is sure to be a long and storied career, they are absolutely sensational.
Family is released next week via Co-operative Music / School Boy Error.
Posted by Gareth O’Malley
