These New Puritans - Hidden

When your first record of Fall-influenced, guitar-led electro art-rock was reasonably well-received, you'd be forgiven for staying on that path. It's surprising then, that England's These New Puritans haven't so much changed direction as ripped up the whole road.

This isn't half-arsed, sloppy experimentation either. Hidden is as beautifully and precisely executed as it is ambitious. With its sombre arrangement of oboes and bassoons, opening classical overture Time Xone is soon steamrollered by the sinister, Eastern-influenced We Want War. Massive drums battle with horns, keys, choral harmonies, vocal samples and frontman (and songwriter) Jack Barnett's lyrics: “Can't you feel them breathing down your neck?”. Over seven minutes in length, it's an epic start. Elsewhere, the xylophone of Hologram contrasts with the gunshot drums of the Timbaland-esque Attack Music, as Barnett spits the chorus with venom.

A dystopian coming together of themes of nature and conflict, words are delivered both in aggressive chants (Under Fire) and delicately (White Chords) and are always intelligent, “Frames of colour litter the bracken, regal and strange.”

Swapping the safety of guitars for brass, woodwind, children's choirs and the sound of chains and knives was brave, and the Southend quartet should be applauded for their ambition. Aside from maybe sounding a bit like the result of some kind of futuristic tribal conflict between Massive Attack, Tricky, MIA and Telepathe, Hidden is almost completely undefinable.

An intriguing fusion of old and new, the challenging Hidden may not be the feel-good album of the summer, but it is outstanding. If you thought These New Puritans were little more than indie also-rans, think again.

These New Puritans at Oxford Art Factory

THESE NEW PURITANS
LOST VALENTINOS
TRAPS
Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst
12/08/08

Four-piece Traps opened the evening with a sound that, as has been the general trend with guitar bands for a while now, gave a nod to the eighties. Their songs were certainly well-crafted, but it’s hard to see them standing out from the plethora of bands already doing this kind of thing.

It feels like Lost Valentinos have been around forever. A couple of years ago there was a massive buzz about them, yet they have still to live up to their potential, and tonight’s display did little to suggest that they are finally going to set the world alight. Theirs was a decent enough set, but their apparent coolness - the Michael Stipe face-paint and head-to-toe black clothes, the way singer Nik Yiannikas only made his entrance well after the rest of the band were already playing - felt a little contrived. While their new material was quite interesting and sonic and showed a level of musical maturity, it remains to be seen whether it will be enough to give Lost Valentinos their second wind.

There was an inordinate amount of local band members and industry people in the crowd by the time These New Puritans made their entrance. While this meant that the atmosphere in the room was fairly subdued (the glitterati of the Sydney scene is way too cool to dance and have fun), the English quartet’s output was certainly given the attention and appreciation it deserved. With awesome drummer George Barnett carrying the beat, twin brother Jack (above) delivered lyrics with venom while looking resplendent in a shirt that looked like some kind of body armour from Arthurian times.

The band’s eclectic sound was equally dancey, punky and psychedelic and, with guitar, bass, synths and samplers, was as stirring as it was fascinating. However, while three of the band performed tracks like Elvis and Swords Of Truth with gusto, female member Sophie Sleigh-Johnson looked so bored behind the laptop that one wonders whether she was actually taking part in the gig at all or simply spending the duration checking her Facebook.

She was the only uninterested person in the room though, and with the new songs sounding wonderfully diverse, These New Puritans are clearly keen to continue pushing the boundaries of their sound, which suggests that this still fledgling band has exciting times ahead of them.

These New Puritans interview

THESE NEW PURITANS VOCALIST JACK BARNETT TELLS ROB TOWNSEND THAT THERE IS MUCH MORE TO HIS BAND THAN IMAGE

The British press love a bit of hype. No sooner had These New Puritans turned heads with their hectic combination of beats, guitars, samples and synths which vocalist/guitarist Jack Barnett describes as: “Dancehall meets Steve Reich,” than they were being showered with praise by those in the know at the NME.

Of course, the line between praise and over-hype is a fine one, so you won’t find the band getting too carried away with the media attention. “It’s probably not a terrible thing for the press to like you,” Barnett admits. “But I wouldn’t want us to be ridiculously hyped because I don’t think we could ever really fulfil it in terms of making a pop song that sweeps the world. I’m quite happy with just a bit of praise.”

Just like former tour-buddies Klaxons before them, These New Puritans have perhaps unfairly been tagged as something of a fashion band, with Barnett appearing in GQ’s best dressed list and his twin brother [and drummer] George finding himself in the NME Cool List. However, while the band has worked with French fashion designer Hedi Slimane and produced music for the Dior Homme show, Barnett says that aesthetics aren’t a big deal. “People always think we are one of those image bands, you know, where it’s all about image and the music doesn’t matter. We don’t actually think about it much,” he shrugs.

Indeed, if proof were needed that the quartet are not the scenesters that the uninitiated might imagine them to be, it is that they hail from Southend-on-Sea, a distinctly unfashionable tourist trap in the south of England. With the town’s only other notable export being cartoon goths The Horrors, Southend is certainly not the buzzing centre of indie cool. Therefore, it was simply through their music, rather than because they hung around with the right people in super-trendy parts of London, that These New Puritans got noticed. “I think if you are in London you are in a sea of bloodthirsty people in bands, desperate for success, whereas in Southend there is very little happening so it is easier to get noticed. And it’s right next door to London anyway.”

The group – which is completed by Thomas Hein [bass, sampler, backing vocals, percussion] and Sophie Sleigh-Johnson [synthesizers, sequencer] – offers a sound which is unique because of how incredibly eclectic it is, with Wu Tang Clan, The Fall and Aphex Twin being just three of a host of far-reaching influences. “I don’t have to like music to listen to it. At the moment I am listening to a lot of dancehall, and a lot of it is awful but there are aspects of it that I really like that will come into our next album.”

At the forefront of a thrilling sound, Barnett’s vocal is akin to Mark E. Smith’s, as he spits lyrics which are cryptic in the extreme. “I can’t help that,” Barnett says of his wordplay. “I’ve always been very secretive. When I was little I used to make up my own languages… well, codes, and I’d write in all these codes, so I think it is just a natural thing for me.”

These New Puritans arrive in Australia for the first time on the back of a lengthy stint of touring around America, Europe and Japan, and have supported the likes of Crystal Castles and The Kills. “We were going to be one of the first new bands to do a proper tour of China as well but it turned out to be too expensive. We were also going to do a tour of the Middle East. That was my idea, but security costs became too much. That would have been amazing.”

With their debut album, Beats Pyramid having been out for a few months now, Barnett is now keen to get off the road and concentrate on a new record. “We’ve got a few new songs that will be on the next album,” he says of the writing he has managed to do over the past few months on tour. “We’re not going to play them [live] because none of us can play the instruments that they are written for yet. They are all just theoretical at the moment.”

Contrary to his band’s high-energy shows and chaotic sound, Jack Barnett comes across as a shy, modest character and, typical of the way his band are sidestepping the hype that surrounds them, he seems to be approaching his debut visit to this country with the minimum of fuss. “Yeah, it’ll be interesting,” he says nonchalantly. “Apparently our album has been well-received over there, so it’ll be quite an interesting experience.”