| thirty fingers |
| From Stolenwine.co.uk I half expected debaser to sound like some terrible Pixies rip off (much in the same way that if a band called Vespa crossed your path you'd expect some Weller-esque shite), but thankfully this isn't the case. The late 80s and early 90s were all very well, but they're pretty much left in the past where they belong. Back in Pixies-free 2002, Debaser are a three piece who hail from Perth and are peddling indie rock songs that are very British and without a heaven-bound monkey in sight. Importantly for an unsigned band, they get a few basic things right straight away. Few of their songs stray past that magic three and a half minute limit, and in all but one instance ("Swing") they stop before the song has run out of breath. Also, unlike many bands reviewed in this section, they are careful not to ping their colours to any particular musical mast, and instead they explore different musical ideas while all the time maintaining their own identity. So one moment "This Is" suggests debaser have a few punk-pop records hidden in their collection, while the next "I'm Sorry" shows a more mellow Teenage Fanclub-esque side to their sound, but stamping their own personality in a way which shows they are doing more than imitating their heroes. Lead vocalist Ross Thorburn has a low hushed voice, which refuses to be raised even in the loud power chord-driven sections of "This Is", and this may prove invaluable to Debaser in giving them a distinguishing feature from the opposition. This unique vocal style, however, may prove to be a curse as well as a blessing. While it provides an interesting angle to "This Is", it seems ill-suited to a song like "Slow Suicide", a breezy track chronicling the chemically-induced death of a relationship, which ends up being a great pop song without a pop vocal. "Scarlet Fever" is either sung by a different vocalist or the same one adopting a totally different style, but either way nails exactly the sort of vocal debaser should be employing on their poppier tracks. They don't get it totally right, however, because despite great vocals, piano and lead guitar fronting a great melody, the lyrics are fairly terrible, including such forced rhyming as "in the morning I called her from a phone / I thought she was in Paris / but it turned out she was in Rome". With new words this could be a great song. Of the six songs on this CD, debaser probably have four - "This Is", "Slow Suicide", "Scarlet Fever" and "I'm Sorry" - that show a genuine flair for songwriting, but they never totally nail of any of them to the extent where you feel the recorded version has done the melody justice. In fairness, there is nothing that can't be corrected easily with a bit of work and re-thinking, and if Debaser find a way to consistently get it right in the way that the do in the best moments here they would improve greatly. [Jon] |