The Cooper Temple Clause’s CD to joy-cry

If there is anything offish about The Cooper Temple Clause second album than it is – its capacious title: ‘Kick Up The Fire, And Let The Flames Break Loose’ (after Phil Larkin’s poem)… This ‘complaint’ aside, it’s a monster of an album and, after all, the title actually sums up its approach. This is a few light years away from the current Brit-scene and it is such a step forward, sideways and upward that some fans might find it a bit freaky.

For the rest of us, or this reviewer in particular, it is a revelation due to thinking that their debut disc “could have tried harder”. This time they have and whether it is the result of touring that has increased their confidence, studio/songwriting experiences that have allowed them to bravely move every-which-way or different medication, we are not in the know. What is amazing is that this album sounds like the band’s fifth or sixth, it is so mature, diverse and brill!

It also demonstrates that the industry is so wrong to demand and expect rookie acts to deliver quality in their earliest days because some artists need to locate, articulate and cultivate ‘voice’. This is not to suggest that TCTC have found their expression and one suspects that this album is generally opening the doors of opportunities. As wide as the gates of an old-money estate! From the first chords of ‘The Same Mistakes’ the band is on a high and taking you higher, rocking to the sky and beyond the event horizon.

Single ‘Promises Promises’ steamrolls with a dynamic that doesn’t negate melody, it creates a perfect guitar-pop, something that’s truly been missing among the UK bands. There are experimenting outfits, there are metallistic and ‘fluff-cum-emo’ soft rockers surpassing Coldplay in our humble opinion: the probable Brit/MTV/Mercury winners could learn a thing or few on ‘New Toys’! Now, there is hardly a band like the Cooper’s lot that rocks like the Britons used to in the past all the way up the charts: solidly, vigorously but without losing on melody.

And the band’s vocabulary has been enlarged to include sonic-scapes that recall many a genre while avoiding each and every single one. There are moments of Krautrockness, there are expansive passages like an electro-Beefheart reflecting on Mojave Desert on ‘Talking To A Brick Wall’ or Spritualized ‘Glasgow-kissing’ Suicide during ‘Into My Arms’ or the Zeppelin-gone-techno (i.e. Can-esque) during the epic (10:10 duration) ‘Written Apology’ that brings the curtain down magnificently.

There is an award in National Basketball Association league in the USA – MIP, the Most Improved Player and TCTC can claim it without any foreseeable opposition… Although there are new and coming albums, such as Muse’s ‘Absolution’, that will make this a year to remember.

8/10

Tour dates:

27 September – Islington Academy, London
16 November – Carling Academy, Bristol
17 November – Waterfront, Norwich
18 November – QMU, Glasgow
19 November – Academy, Manchester
21 November – Pyramid Centre, Portsmouth
23 November – Carling Academy, Birmingham
24 November – Met. Uni, Leeds