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Sunday, May 03, 2009

The Rakes - Klang


THE RAKES
Klang


It seems to be the latest thing for bands to snub familiarity in favour of something a little more diverse. Following Franz Ferdinand recording in a crumbling Victorian town hall and Youth Group holing up in a mess hall, The Rakes decided to make their third album in a fresh environment, and so relocated to an industrial area in the old Communist part of Berlin. The Londoners lived and recorded at a Bauhaus-designed, Soviet radio station that had been converted into a studio.

Filled with songs that barely break the three-minute mark, the resulting album is raw, snappy and to the point at about half-an-hour but, aside from feeling a little meatier in its sound, this is pretty much the same Rakes that we have heard in their previous two offerings. You’re In It opens Klang with a surge of energy, its angular pop coming across like Franz Ferdinand before they went disco, then That’s The Reason offers the first catchy chorus. Alan Donohoe’s conversational, almost reluctant delivery is delicious, especially when it slips into 1980s David Bowie mode.

Of course, this being The Rakes, the subject matter deals pretty much exclusively with the trials of modern urban living for Generation Y. With song-titles like The Loneliness Of The Outdoor Smoker and The Light From Your Mac, it’s all oh-so-21st Century at times, but it is observed with dollops of wit and wisdom. Klang might just be The Rakes’ best album to date and, as always, is a pretty honest and truthful representation of ordinary day-to-day life.

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