- late of THE pier - fantasy black channel

by Rory Carroll on Tue, 2008/08/12 - 12:31am
Released: Mon, 2008/08/11 on Parlophone
ARTROCKER RATING:

Had the Mercury Music Prize nominations been made in August rather than July, it’d be a fair bet that Late of the Pier wouldn’t just have been shoed-in late entrants: they’d probably have bagged the prize. Many critics have already likened them to those former winners of music’s poisoned chalice, the Klaxons - but such hasty comparisons only do the band a great disservice.

when it’s good it is very, very good...

You see, with their fingers plunged into various musical pies, Late of the Pier have created a sound so monumental that it defies genre categorisation. This isn’t nu rave, or electro, or any one set genre for that matter: this is a glorious amalgamation of adventurous styles with a vein of the 1980s pulsing through its core.
They think little of bouncing from the mild prog-rock shuffle of ‘Broken’ to the Roxy Music-tickling synth pop of ‘Space and the Woods’, and do so with the sort of reckless abandon usually reserved for asylum escapees and rabbits on speed.
‘Fantasy Black Channel’ is chock-full of similar transitions, tripping its way over musical landscapes as varied and bizarre as that pictured on the album sleeve.
It doesn’t always work, and there are points where the album’s skittish nature becomes a little overwhelming; however, when it’s good it is very, very good.

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