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Why is album making so much harder the second time around? Nothing is harder second time around. You
don't pull the stabilisers off, become a world class BMXer and then six month later find yourself
unable to even pop the smallest wheelie. You don't go from unstoppable sexual tyrannosaur to shy,
inexperienced fawn, who'd faint at the merest hint of a nipple. At least some of us don't.
So why when it comes to making that sophomore recording, do so many bands totally drop the ball? You
can say it's pressure, you can say it's trying to live up to some high standard that previous
efforts have set, but really, in most cases those things just doesn't stack up. No matter how much
you want them to.
We Are Scientists' debut was an exuberant burst of post-punk indie-pop, with a job lot of
brain-scramblingly good choruses and hooks that would impress Abu Hamza during J.M. Barrie
appreciation week. It was an album that dug in and bounced across your cerebellum until you simply
gave up fighting it.
But the second album is easier to resist. With Love And Squalor partied like it was 1999. Brain
Thrust Mastery is getting an early night to make sure it isn't late for work tomorrow. You can kind
of understand that. We ain't as young as we used to be, so maybe it's time for a bit of
contemplation. We'll keep the good bits, dull the pace slightly, ease into something, gulp, more
grown up.
Understandable, but not advisable. Because in growing up, in calming down, it's all got a bit dull.
Sure, there have been personnel changes afoot, drummer Michael Tapper departing to do, errr...,
something else. But as a man once commented, it's hardly Paul leaving The Beatles is it? Christ,
it's not even Paul leaving Oasis. It may have contributed to a darkening mood, but it
can't explain where that inner geek went. The one which bounced from pillar to party like The
Strokes' lab partner.
You miss that guy. The one who didn't understand what this whole thing was about, but still had
enough energy to scream they'd been hit. The guy of Brain Thrust Mastery is either droningly
depressed and riddled with self-doubt (Ghouls), in desperate need of taking the first of twelve
steps (After Hours) or determined to roll up their suit sleeves and record the theme tune to Miami
Vice (Lethal Enforcer).
It isn't all bad. For all it's alcoholic desperation, After Hours is disarmingly sweet and catchy,
Impatience rediscovers that ability to pick up a tune and gleefully slap you about the face with it
and Altered Beast has both a stomping beat and an eminently appealing Weezer-like fuzzy
grind.
But none of it stops you longing after the energy and charm of their debut. From freestyle champions
they've gone to unsteady riders. From indie royalty to just part of the proletariat. Unfortunately
it seems, WAS just not WAS any more.
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