GoodBooks: 'Control'

That title is apparently representative of a grander question. Who, it asks, is really in control? This is not an empty gesture either; each of these songs is actually a self-contained, beautifully-written short story - a paean to life’s little people and the trials of existence for each one of us. Max Cooke’s vocals are very British, to the extent that they sound like a conscious attempt to avoid being anything else and the songs themselves are equally full of character. The first single from the album, 'Passchendaele', is the richly colourful story of a soldier signing up to fight with all the gusto of his generation of young men and dying, leaving his wife and child. 'Alice' tells the tale of a bitterly-ended lesbian love affair, so detailed that it is as affecting as anything in a modern short story compilation.

At the album’s heart is 'Good Life Salesman', a world-weary tirade at the empty, controlling language of sales that has become so recently ubiquitous. Elsewhere is 'The Last Day', a bleakly lovely guitar outing and 'The Illness', a thumping rock out that explodes and cascades. Several tracks (the aforementioned 'Good Life Salesman' and 'Passchendaele') have an overtly 1980s sound that presumably is born of their New Order-emulating electronic music sounds. The music behind each of these well-penned lyrics is perhaps slightly less impressive, but the album has a good weight of quality and deserves to be given the time that will allow it to blossom.

Released 30th July 2007 by by Columbia.

Written by Huw Green.