Blue River – Life Imitating Art
Blue River - Life Imitating Art
Release Date: 28th May 2018
There is a steady stream of new music
coming out of Cornwall at the moment, but Blue River are the first
died-in-the-wool indie band I’ve heard coming out of the region in a very long
time. The quartet’s new album ‘Life Imitating Art’ is littered with indie and
Britpop reference points which suggest these guys have been studying the genre for
a while now and perfecting their take on things. Indeed, opening track ‘Elegance’
bursts in to life with a wall of guitars and vocal harmonies that could come
straight out of a Stereophonics playback and immediately you’re sucked in to
the Beatles-esque structure and soaring guitars. There’s more of a rock chug to
the guitars on ‘How Do You Sleep?’ and the beat has a sloping, Gorrilaz vibe to
it while the vocals of front man Perran Nicholls is in the Kasabian area of the
indie Venn diagram.
By the time we get to title track
‘Life Imitating Art’ you can tell that Blue River are flush with ideas as the
tinkle of ivories is introduced to the indie romp before ‘Friday Night Love
Fight’ gets all Ed Sheeran on our asses with the choppy acoustic chords and loose
dance beats. I’m not sure if the lyrics on ‘New York’ are ironic or not as the
Big Apple seems to have become the city of choice to get engaged in these days
and it feels like this song is having some fun on that theme but I could be
just getting old and cynical. There’s a Kinks vibe to the acoustic strum of ‘Spring
Love’ while ‘Chasing the Scene’ blends the Northern drawl of bands like Cast
and Oasis with the uplifting indie-pop melodies of the Killers, all pushed
along by a satisfyingly driving drum beat.
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| Blue River - not Blue |
It’s hard to get away from the
influences and reference points as they are worn with such honesty and pride
but I don’t normally like to draw comparisons so directly if I can help it. The
trouble is, when songs like ‘Lose It All’ blend the sounds of the Lightning Seeds
and Oasis and ‘We Fall In Love’ uses a Hard-Fi guitar style, it’s hard not to
make the connections in your head. My favourite track on the collection,
lyrically speaking at least, is ‘Marty McFly’ which bristles and pops with all
the promise of a night out and references the greatest film trilogy about a
teenager narrowly avoiding having sex with various members of his family.
On the home straight of this 13
track beast, ‘Face of God’ slows things down for some kind of Liam Gallagher
meets Rita Ora track which doesn’t fit seamlessly with the rest of the album.
However, ‘The Life’ picks things up with a bright, optimistic and perky indie-pop
anthem drenched in summer sun and road-trips. Final track ‘Love Songs Forever’
has something of the Verve about the way it builds and grows in stature
throughout the course of the song. All in all, this is kind of album that will
crop up in people’s collections in 10-15 years and remind them of that great
summer they had when they were younger and will sit nicely alongside more
established artists on CD shelves and/or Spotify playlists.
More information: https://www.facebook.com/BlueRiverCornwall/
Live Dates:
17th May – The Junction, Plymouth w/Echo Chamber
+ 50 Year Storm
28th May – Album Launch @ Old Bakery Studios,
Truro