It’s not often that the first single from a band grabs you enough to really look forward to an album – in my experience it’s limited to a few bands like ‘The Automatic’ and ‘Marina and the Diamonds’, but Spector is possibly my most recent example, with the amazing ‘Celestine’ triggering me to pre-order the London band’s debut album ‘Enjoy It While It Lasts’.
Coming in at forty-two minutes, this twelve-track EP is a refreshingly strong track with no really duff songs burnt onto the CD. Sounding like the Editors, the Killers and the Kaiser Chiefs getting together at a party – albeit a slightly gloomy party where you are stuck at the back with some cheap lager, some geeky friends and no chance of pulling – Spector are a band that do stick to a formula – well written lyrics heading to a catchy chorus before thrusting in a direction-change in a third verse which builds up over a guitar backing before everything drops and then comes back again, with some call and responses from the backing vocals – but it’s a formula that works and this is some of the best sounding indie I’ve heard in a long time.
The album opens with ‘True Love (For Now)’, a track that sees a slower start toe album before it kicks in after the fifty second mark, but it’s a song that’s happy to embrace some interesting production choices by mixing in an answerphone message and a repeated glass smashing sound effect, both adding to the track. Boasting the great bridge and chorus I mentioned earlier in their formula, it also throws in some strong lyrics on a tip-top introduction to the album. A breakdown in the style of The Killers’ ‘Spaceman’ adds to the piece and really pushes it along.
A strong opening double-punch continues with ‘Chevy Thunder’, a guitar-led track that hits you with its relentless stream of lyrics and its tour-de-force chorus. Throwing in a similar breakdown to the first and a slower conclusion, this looks to be a future single for the band.
‘Grey Shirt & Tie’ follows and is a gentler, more straight-forward track with a simple but distinctive synth line. With an unusual breakdown in drum riff half-way through that does throw you off for a little while, this isn’t the strongest track on the album but it’s an enjoyable slice of indie pop.
‘Twenty Nothing’, in contrast, is one of the strongest songs on ‘Enjoy It While It Lasts’, with another fun to hear bridge and a catchy call-and-response chorus and it has one of the best riffs on the album, alongside some well written lyrics. It also delivers another hook as it heads for its conclusion and proves their formula works with a dramatic build up as it powers towards the finish line, expertly mixing in this new hook to the established sound of the track.
Trevor Horn’s influence on the next track, as on lead single ‘Celestine’ which appears later, is obvious on ‘Friday Night, Don’t Ever Let It End’, a well layered piece getting its hook more from the synth and the verses more so than the short chorus, which does though grow on you as the track progresses. As always it’s the breakdown and subsequent comeback that is best with a huge anthemic sing-a-long end that really brings this track up a notch, and something I imagine will sound incredible live.
‘Lay Low’, track six, is the closest tune to a ballad on the album but continues the anthemic feel set by the previous song. To use a cliché, it is a lighters-out tune. It grabs you with some more well-written lyrics and some hooks from the use of the track title and the ‘Don’t Light Me Up’ moments. Throw in a well-arranged string section and it shows that, even as we hit the half-way point, Spector still have some ideas to throw into their pot.
Kicking immediately into ‘Upset Boulevard’, it resets the pace but this is my least favourite track on the album, but it still has its moments, one of which is the random guest appearance from Roots Manuva at the end, delivering an old-fashioned copyright warning and name checking the album title. Quite.
Track eight ‘No Adventure’ is the most industrial-sounding and downbeat track on display but the grim sounding opening leads into a chorus not a million miles away from ‘Twenty Nothing’ but throws in an anthemic part-two to this as the song builds up. This is a slower track but it’s one of my favourites, building up to a powerful crescendo.
Entering the final third of the album, ‘What You Wanted’ is a less stand-out song but has another notable chorus which, in its repetitiveness, grabs you.
But it’s first single ‘Celestine’ which follows which is the stand-out track of the piece. With a brilliant structure, drum beat and most effective use of their established formula, alongside a fast-pace, stuttering vocals and a singable chorus, ‘Celestine’ is without doubt the best on the album but one of the best tracks released this year overall. With a two-part chorus and an incredible break-down and come back, plus an extra acoustic style chorus tagged on to the end as a treat for those who’ve just heard the single version, this is a great way to boost the album at the thirty-minute mark, with back-loading the album with the singles much more welcome than the front-loading we usually get.
Penultimate track ‘Grim Reefer’ is an eerie-sounding composition with a slightly different sound to lead singer Frederick’s vocals. A smooth, inward-facing gentle track, it does feel like an ending track until it strikes up into a more powerful blast half-way through. It’s a suitable ending to an album which is continued and concluded by second single ‘Never Fade Away, a song which will grow on you thanks to its repetitive – but subtly altering – chorus and another well-done breakdown and come-back, rounded off by an appropriately styled fading away at the end to a stripped-back conclusion with some ear-pleasing clapping.
Overall ‘Enjoy It While It Lasts’ should be a debut Spector are proud of. For those of you who heard ‘Celestine’ that established song structure is present in the majority of the songs here but it’s a formula that doesn’t bore you thankfully and works more than it doesn’t. There are a couple of tracks that are less exciting than the others but they’re not enough to warrant a skip on your music player of choice. An enjoyable indie debut that should, I hope, do well.
(7.5/10)
