The Big Pink: 'A Brief History Of Love'

Although the lead singer of this industrial duo is named after Robbie Robertson and they have named themselves after The Band’s 1969 album, The Big Pink’s similarities with Bob Dylan’s one-time backing band end there.

This is a record that has cold isolated timbres and vast lonely percussion. With sounds like this they occupy a place that is generally left vacant in contemporary British music.

Plenty of funky guitar acts might cite Joy Division as an influence, but the oppressive tones of the legendary Mancunians is done no justice by these cheerful legions. The Big Pink are worthier successors by far. They don’t operate within the same short-track template, nor are the tunes so clipped and contained, instead they make music that sounds like the disappearing industrial heartland that had so disenfranchised the youth of Curtis’ generation.

The lineage is infused with Post-Rock and Industrial sounds (Einsturzende Neubaten are cited as an influence) by way of British Goth music’s less savoury sounds. At times the pair are only one step away from images of the whooping make-upped crowds that came of age at Cure concerts in the mid 80s.

Sometimes this works, and at others it misses the mark. The shouty 'Dominoes' (that must have seemed such a good idea at the time), sleazy 'Frisk' (that sounds like something Robbie Williams might have thrown together after a bottle of Scotch in the mixing room and then cast off) and cringing 'Tonight' do the group no favours, but the balance is generally in their favour. They do best when they slow right down and let their soundscapes impress.

This is evident on opening track 'Crystal Visions', which is born out of a tortuous electric guitar fuzz and proceeds doggedly through a stubborn and marvellous sequence of chords. 'Too Young To Love' has the atmosphere it is aiming at, but the melancholy in the song is undermined somewhat by its facile repetition, and the band end up sounding a little hackneyed. Their ambitions are better matched in 'At War With The Sun', which sounds like early New Order, a journey on a train through the north, in the rain, and is great songwriting. 'Golden Pendulum' is an electronic outing that sometimes loses its way and 'A Brief History Of Love' is every bit as generic as the title suggests.

It seems that this sonically astute duo have about half of a really good album here - if they can make up the rest, they will be a mature and exciting journey in alternative music.



Released on 14th September 2009 by 4AD.

Written by Huw Green.