Bombay Bicycle Club / A Different Kind of Fix

Bombay Bicycle Club
A Different Kind Of Fix
(Island)
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In the new issue of Artrocker Magazine, BBC are marveling at the fact they've got things like "lights" and "crew" all of a sudden, as if becoming a massively appealing act that lots of people want to see is something that happens to other bands. Like epic folk bands. Or piano ballad bands. Or epic folky piano ballad bands.

They don't rub their eyes for too long though: it's clear from the outset of 'A Different Kind Of Fix' that BBC are fantastically confident, and firing great songs out of their teeth with the casual swagger of a cocktail making supremo. Alakazam! It's a different kind of Bombay Bicycle Club.

So the album wakes up to bright acoustic guitars (as if nodding to their previous outing 'Flaws') before cracking open a canister of sparkling kung-fu beats. This is opener 'How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep', and it sounds like the work of a Big Band. A Pyramid Stage at 10pm sorta band.

The follow up, 'Bad Timing' is equally eye opening for anyone who thought they knew BBC; it glides along on futuristic, krautrock-built railway tracks, lifting itself into space with peripheral synths and a melancholy sense of grandness.

This isn't, however, the sound of a group throwing grappling hooks over stadium walls: there's a genuine intimacy to 'Take The Right One' which is every bit as powerful as the ecstatic bassline which drives through the middle of it. 'Shuffle' shines a romantic spotlight, then scats down the street like Top Cat on a roll. These songs don't pitch to the masses, but they might well schmooze them anyway.

Conclusion time! 'A Different Kind of Fix' will do for indie fans what Westlife did to sex-starved housewives when they stood up off their chairs 'dramatically' in the middle of their songs: it will make us go uncontrollably ape shit. Make sure you're there.