Screaming Lights - Like Angels [Album]

**RichPickings** · 11:03 PM

It should be an exam question right? "The Beatles have destroyed Liverpudlian popular music in perpetuity. Now discuss". Whilst almost every X-Factor wannabe (and that also means YOU, Victoria Hesketh) has fond childhood memories of boggling "Please Please Me" into a hairbrush, for sons of the Mersey it's seemed reverse etiquette to stick to quiet fury and minor key dissonance ever since 'God Save The Queen.'

For a group just out of school, emerging scouse quartet Screaming Lights seem remarkably absorbent; the PR blurb talks about them gestating in "Gloriously out of step" conditions, but "Like Angels" quickly reveals that if anything, the reverse is true. Frontman Jay Treadell - peroxide of hair and impressively unphotogenic - is also able to bend his self possessed charisma around material both gritty and elegiac, with authentic feeling, early 80's atmospherics which you assume he derived from YouTube and educated guesswork.

Protestations of insularity not withstanding, there was never any chance that thirty years of their alma mater's musical history could be ignored, and all of "Like Angels'" numerous better moments can draw a line of descent straight back through Degsy, Kenny and Yosser. Proof? For the chilled synthesizers of 'Rainmaker' feel the Wild Swans DNA, do the same for 'Champagne Socialist' and The Coral's quilted psychedelia, whilst 'Glow' provides a reminder that Cast were once credible competitors to Blur and Oasis. So far, the harsh might say so copyist. It should be noted though that all the use of this heritage isn't mimickery but ingredient, influences - although more intriguingly there's also a nod to the city which stole Liverpool's prosperity, with 21st Century evoking New Order in their Brotherhood pomp.

It's testament to the speed at which that beast called "indie" has moved in the last eighteen months that "Like Angels" has already been dismissed in some quarters as a by-the-numbers exercise, when compared to your average Pigeon Detectives record it sounds like - well, Rubber Soul for example. It also looks like the age of the career band seems to be rapidly drawing to a close for iPod children, the "Difficult" album now being whatever the next one you have to make is.

Predictions of success are impossible in this brave new world, so enough to say that Screaming Lights have made a record which will probably mean that a job doing admissions to the Beatles Experience will have to wait. For now.

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jack s · Comment Posted on: October 8, 2009, 08:12 PM

Screaming Lights = Gash. Nice review man, your wording is on another intellectual level to mine.

RichPickings · Comment Posted on: October 8, 2009, 09:41 PM

Damned if you don't like something, damned if you do...

Look, I didn't complain when someone gave Set Your Goals a 91% rating. For them to get that in my eyes they'd have to announce their immediate disbandment and a full withdrawal of their entire shitty back catalogue. And then emigration to somewhere with no internet. Or airports. Or access to musical instruments.

Rich

altsounds · Comment Posted on: October 8, 2009, 10:57 PM

Originally Posted by RichPickings

Damned if you don't like something, damned if you do...

Look, I didn't complain when someone gave Set Your Goals a 91% rating. For them to get that in my eyes they'd have to announce their immediate disbandment and a full withdrawal of their entire shitty back catalogue. And then emigration to somewhere with no internet. Or airports. Or access to musical instruments.

Rich

Pahaha. Amazing. They are quite good live though and the way they make the crowd go into mental cases is unlike anything I have ever seen before. On record, not so good particularly their new, "look at our friends" direction.

Andy Von Pip · Comment Posted on: October 9, 2009, 07:23 PM

Damn fine review that. I'm not quite sure Cast were every credible competion for anybody myself. Mind I do recall "Walk Away" was much beloved by Sky Sports for their cheesey "heroic after match montages" and brought a tear to the eye of their incredibly hisrsute presenter Richard Keys.

I think this album shows great potential. Maybe they should have held off until they were more "fully formed" . Some moments work really well "Hello Tomorrow " and "21st Century", for example...but the the slower numbers are a bit awkward....I imagine they'd be great live...the singer has a very interesting voice

Anways enjoyed reading this.

RichPickings · Comment Posted on: October 9, 2009, 09:33 PM

Saw them supporting Gallows. Frankly, it was a scarier mosh pit when I took my four year old to see Bob The Builder.

Rich

RichPickings · Comment Posted on: October 10, 2009, 08:30 AM

That's Set Your Goals, not Screaming Lights, by the way.

Rich

altsounds · Comment Posted on: October 10, 2009, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by RichPickings

Saw them supporting Gallows. Frankly, it was a scarier mosh pit when I took my four year old to see Bob The Builder.

Rich

I wasn't really talking about a pit just the fact that within 5 seconds of them starting to play that kids were stage diving and going mental for it. Yet to see another band make that crowd reaction so quickly.

Heron · Comment Posted on: October 10, 2009, 02:29 PM

Glow isn't even fit to be a Cast B-side. Now if that doesn't tell you what I think of that song then you could always read my review of it I suppose.

Heron · Comment Posted on: October 10, 2009, 02:29 PM

Originally Posted by RichPickings

Look, I didn't complain when someone gave Set Your Goals a 91% rating.

Rich

Haha - no but you have now.

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Screaming Lights - Like Angels [Album]

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October 7, 2009, 08:29 PM

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