retrakr

[retrakr]

Bombay Bicycle Club - Fix, Different

Bombay Bicycle Club have always played by their own rules, and that may be the one true constant when it comes to this London group. From making, in our opinion, an indie rock classic with their debut I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose, they’ve changed things up on every record thereafter. The band went largely acoustic for the follow-up Flaws, started incorporating electronics and way more texture on A Different Kind of Fix (the focus here), and added full on world music to the mix for So Long, See You Tomorrow. This isn’t even counting frontman Jack Steadman’s R&B-infulenced solo endeavor Mr. Jukes, another treat if you haven’t heard it.

To call the band ambitious is an understatement, and while they don’t quite hit Radiohead levels of sonic exploration, they’re definitely chameleonic in their own right. Talking Heads might be more of an apt comparison, as they also took a signature sound and sought to update it across each subsequent release. Alas, with experimentation almost always comes bloat in some form of another. A Different Kind of Fix, while being a solid record, clocks in at over 50 minutes and has multiple tracks at the 5 minute mark. Granted, the singles are mostly in the first half of the record, but it could still do with a bit of a trim.

What We Kept:

How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep - a perfect opener if there ever was one, with a great build into a beautifully repetitive chorus

Shuffle - the banger of the album, and sonically much more fitting as Track 2 than buried deeper in the record

Lights Out, Words Gone - a slow jam if there ever was one, keeping the light dance vibe going and possibly sending a much needed example of chillness to Kevin Parker before he steered Tame Impala into the same territory

Your Eyes - another great builder, now slotted to kick off Side B and re-energize the album

What We Dropped:

Fractured - a slow moving, sonically washy ballad that ultimately feels like extra

Favorite Day - another reverb-laden jaunt that doesn’t hold a candle to the stronger tracks

TL,DR:

This RE:Trakr emphasizes the band’s new deployment of dance groves and repetitive hooks, and ditches a few texture pieces weighing down the album.