Two Door Cinema Club – Tourist History

This album drops next Monday, so today seems as good a day as any to review it… It leaked a while back now, so I’ve had plenty of time to digest it properly, and have come to the conclusion that it’s one of the finest debut albums I’ve heard in a while.

I expected to be impressed by a band that made the BBC’s Sound of 2010 longlist (along with acts like Delphic, Ellie Goulding and The Drums), but this release is very polished, with some clever song-writing and plenty to get your proverbial teeth into.

Jon’s Rating: 81%

The album maintains a very solid pace throughout and moves between songs quickly – only 1 lasts more than three and a half minutes. As befits this kind of song-writing, the songs are very catchy and upbeat. In terms of sound, think a combination of Bloc Party, Foals and Death Cab, with a poppier vibe.

Track 1: Cigarettes in the Theatre | A song that builds slowly, but in doing so really sets the tone for the album. The kind of guitar work fans of Foals will enjoy coupled with almost twee vocals but without sounding mismatched.

Track 2: Come Back Home | For some reason this track makes me think of driving down rainy roads, but not in a bad way. Pretty formulaic indie-pop at its heart, but the wailing guitar chords and pounding drumbeat will slowly break their way through your eardrums to your unsuspecting brain. Hardly outstanding, but the louder you play it the better it sounds.

Track 3: Do You Want it All? | Injects a change of pace to the record. The chorus features layered, repeated vocals that work nicely, although lyrically perhaps more could be achieved. In context, it sounds fine but it’s not going to become a hit in its own right.

Track 4: This is the Life | More of the same here, although this song seems to me like it could bring the house down live, thanks to its clap-along beat and singalong chorus. I’ll flag it now as a possible festival anthem this summer.

Track 5: Something Good Can Work | It’s not hard to work out why the band released this as a single – quickfire vocals and a floaty pop vibe make it very radio-friendly and it showcases the band’s talents perfectly. Again, teeters on the brink of tweeness but never plunges over the edge.

Track 6: I Can Talk | This is where Bloc Party’s influence can be heard most clearly in the guitar work, but the vocals are very “Death Cabby”. A nice fusion that makes me hungry for a collaboration between Bloc Party and Ben Gibbard! Once more, the song crashes on at a frenetic pace.

Track 7: Undercover Martyn | The band’s third single, this track is initially downtempo, but quickly builds towards the by-now-familiar formula of pounding drums and melodic guitar-squeal. Straying towards Maps and Atlases territory here. The final cascade towards an abrupt end is very effective.

Track 8: What You Know | Took a few listens to win me over, but now I feel it’s one of the best songs on the album. Not pushing any envelopes, but more than good enough to leave you with a grin on your face. The percussion work on this track leaves nothing to be desired.

Track 9: Eat That Up, It’s Good For You | My favourite track on this release, the vocal parts melt into each other beautifully and the almost glitchy sound doesn’t even start to intrude on them, merely injecting a little pace at the right points, finally hammering out a thunderous crescendo before the song fades.

Track 10: You’re Not Stubborn | A catchy chorus is the only real high point here, but it’s a decent last track all the same. Once more the percussion element shines through and reveals itself as the engine behind the music.

In summary, an extremely enjoyable debut from the trio, and I look forward to catching them live at least once or twice this year.

Official website

Pick of the bunch, Eat That Up, It’s Good For You, on Youtube.

An audience with Prof. David Nutt

I had the privilege last night of attending a public lecture by the government’s former chief drug advisor, Professor David Nutt. He was speaking in one of Cardiff University’s largest lecture theatres, and the place was full from front to back, with people in both aisles and sat in the space at the front of the theatre, with a couple of dozen in the doorway. This was despite several schools within the university refusing to publicise the lecture.

Such an excellent turnout was encouraging, and everyone I spoke to afterwards thoroughly enjoyed the talk – it was informative and surprisingly entertaining. In all the lecture lasted over ninety minutes, and the Q&A session was excellent.

At one point, the prospect of Tory drug policy was raised, and his assessment was that the Conservatives would move away from the evidence-based current policy of harm reduction, towards a much harsher approach. This kind of policy will harm addicts, and almost certainly affect society negatively as a result of higher rates of addiction.

He also included a quote from a government minister (this is where I wish I’d taken notes) who said that by ‘consultation’, the government meant that it “found evidence to support its decisions” (or words to that effect). While this is virtually common knowledge, I was nonetheless amazed to hear that a politician had publicly recognised this fact.

Prof. Nutt also revisited his controversial analogy between taking ecstasy and riding horses. I’d read the original article already, but in the lecture he related a telephone conversation he’d had with the Home Secretary, who had called him at his clinic, using some familiar circular logic.

You can’t compare the harms of a legal and an illegal practice.

Why not?

Because one’s illegal.

Why is it illegal?

Because it’s harmful.

So why can’t it be compared with other harmful practices?

Look, you can’t compare an illegal activity with a legal one.

etc, etc

This is where the government rhetoric on drugs becomes unbearable – the fact that a drug is illegal means it is automatically off-limits, the very concept of it being less harmful than other drugs such as alcohol, or (god forbid) actually useful is not even entertained.

Amongst other points, Prof. Nutt examined the link between the diminishing real price of alcohol since the 1980s and the rise in cases of cirrhosis in the UK, particularly in Scotland, and advocated taxes on alcoholic beverages based not on volume but on alcohol content, which would be a sensible move for any government to make. Alcohol directly costs the NHS around £3bn a year, yet it is considered less harmful than substances such as MDMA and cannabis.

To dwell on cannabis for a second, Prof. Nutt also had some figures in his presentation, which showed that using cannabis (even once) increased the odds of being diagnosed with schizophrenia by around 2.6 times the baseline. Even assuming this is direct causation, the proven link between smoking and lung cancer means you are 40 times more likely to contract the disease. Yet tobacco is considered a necessary evil, while cannabis is demonised.

It was interesting to hear his experiences with his own children (he has 4), aged now between 18 and 26 – he openly stated that he had seen his daughter’s friends being taken to hospital after drinking too much, but also that his son had become paranoid after smoking cannabis. Questioned as to his own approach, he merely said that he made sure his kids understood the risks, not just of the drugs but of the criminality attached to them. This sort of sensible approach should be the standard for parents nowadays, who need to appreciate that their children can and will often experiment with drugs – it is far safer for a parent to advise the child than leaving it to dealers or possibly ill-informed friends.

Another question raised related to the effectiveness of the Dutch model of drug legislation, which creates a clear divide between almost certainly less harmful drugs such as cannabis and highly addictive, damaging drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine. He expressed admiration for the Dutch government’s “maturity” in tackling the drugs problem. The effectiveness of decriminalisation in Portugal is quite widely documented, and he was careful to draw a distinction between decriminalisation and legalisation, on the grounds that “marketing of drugs would almost certainly increase harms” to society and individuals.

He was also hopeful of a hung parliament in which the Liberal Democrats received the Science and Technology brief, although such a scenario may be a little hopeful – and he conceded that even in such a case, drugs policy remains the final responsibility of the Home Office, which would remain in the hands of the other coalition partner.