By Geoff Topley
There’s something to be said about a band name and the connection to the sound of their music. In the case of Engineers, this is none more apt than with their fourth album, Always Returning. The contrast is stark between the Engineers’ bland sound compared to the spaced out bliss of major influence, Spiritualized. Engineers as a name just doesn’t have that same appeal as the wonderment that is conjured up with being called Spiritualized, the reference that got me into Engineers when their stunning début (and follow-up album) dropped some 9 years ago.
I missed out on their last album and also somehow managed to miss out on the fact that German dream pop specialist Ulrich Schnauss is a fully-fledged member of Engineers. This came as a huge surprise to me as the normally brilliant Schnauss must have been having some serious off-days when he was adding his parts to this album. Sure there’s a hefty sprinkling of twinkling and a shiny sheen that points towards Schnauss’s solo work, but I must tell you, it’s not even close to his finest work.
The tone of Always Returning is set very early with opener ‘Bless the Painter’, a bland and monotonous tune that struggles to rise above a tired mumble. The twitchy drum sounds don’t help matters and as a tune to open your album, it really does a great job of making low-key exciting. That is not intended as a compliment. ‘Fight or Flight’ is much better fare, again Mark Peters’ vocals drift along, the instrumentation has a heavy hint of My Bloody Valentine, but minus the effects, so what’s the point? Alternatively, early 90s coffee table fodder, The Beloved spring to mind.
The melody to ‘It Rings So True’ is much more appealing and drifts further into the ether, as does the instrumentation, we’re hearing some promise now after a dodgy start, each track gradually improving. ‘Drive Your Car’ compliments the previous tune, though if you left the room towards the end of one and the start of the other, you wouldn’t notice the difference.
‘Innsbruck’ has some neat, clean guitar loops to go with the up-tempo beat and bassline, a wee reminder to what it was that I liked about the band from the outset, the allegiance to the drone rock of Spiritualized is brought to the fore. The positivity is dismissed though with the hideous ‘Searched For Answers’ which is way too much like those awful indie bands with names that make no sense. A quagmire of twitchy guitars and irritating noises (Schnauss? Really?), I can’t understand how or why the band would want to encroach upon this sound, other than a desire for some commercial kudos that normally evades them.
A current popular sound is the old Krautrock (dead on, Manics), which gives Engineers the chance to do something with a bit more bite and zest, ‘A Million Voices’ is a long time coming and gives the notion that maybe the album isn’t all that bad. But compared to the likes of Mogwai, who turn their hands to this sound so much better, the track just sounds amateurish.
When I was about nine years old, I would make ‘music’ on my brother’s handheld Casio keyboard by hitting the demo chord button and pushing random keys to change the chord progression. Engineers have done something similar with ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, added some one string guitar work and actually put it on their album. Fuck and me.
Final track ‘Always Returning’ wheels out the old Beloved sound again, the multi-tracked vocals finally get the better of me. Is Peters such a weak vocalist that there’s a need to layer himself to oblivion? The track ends with some blatant plagiarism of many Spiritualized tracks (but mostly ‘I Think I’m In Love’) complete with wailing harmonica and start/stop bass lines. It’s actually one of the better tracks but merely ends up driving home the fact that this album is utterly beige.
Engineers have taken the best bits of some great acts and melted them into a big pot of shoegaze stew. This album is the result and I’m afraid I’m just not enjoying the mix, time to rethink the recipe.
