Written by Kevin Scott
A siren call followed by a quick-paced synth beat gets feet tapping on ‘Remembering Better Times’, the opening track on this sophomore album by Barcelona-based The Suicide of Western Culture. It continues longer than it needs to but once a secondary melody and shimmering background are fed into the track, it almost melts into itself. It’s almost two minutes before drums appear and the starkness this creates works wonders as an introduction. When the beat does arrive it doesn’t thrash, it simply joins in, adding another layer instead of taking over.
TSOWC’s instrumental post-electro sound owes a lot to everything from Kraftwerk and Neu!, to Godspeed You! Black Emperor and pretty much anything that’s ever been plugged into the grid. There’s a flavour of so much in these 10 tracks, but it rarely overpowers - the flow of the record never becoming disjointed as it moves from one style to the next. To control such a range of styles in this way is commendable. Almost every track is dominated by an uplifting melody pitched higher than the multitude of background distortions and drums. It’s a stirring album for that, never better exemplified than on ‘Love your Friends, Hate Politicians,’ one of the few drum-driven tracks. It builds in swathes, each one attaching itself to you and gripping tighter as the track progresses.
With an explosive start reminiscent to Primal Scream’s Accelerator, ‘El Cristo de la Buena Muerte’ settles in with an industrial beat that clatters and chimes throughout. Drive would have been a very different film with this as its soundtrack - and one well worth watching.
Throughout, Hope Only Brings Pain avoids the dangers of over-egging tracks (for the most part), knowing when to change gear. By avoiding the four-minute codas that can loosen focus on electronica, the listener’s attention never flounders.
Spain is not in a good place at the moment; embroiled in the Eurozone crisis its unemployment rate stands at a record high of 27.2%. It’s within this context that TSOWC have released this album. It could be angry, but it’s not. It’s optimistic, life affirming, hopeful and not painful in the slightest.
