It is, by all accounts, a question of environment. ‘Come Down With Me’, recorded in a dank Glaswegian studio – their own place, apparently, fitting known as ‘The Freezer’ – could not have been the creation of Muscle Shoals. From the initial ‘humm’, the album spits with a cold tension, as if engineered under the constant threat of violence. Not that it is without heart…and that heart belongs deep within the warmth of the 80s, a pulse beat that powered the edgier pop creations of that remarkable era. One listen in and you start to pick up the lost strands of Cabaret Voltaire, ClockDVA, The Normal, the wilder edges of Magazine…and then some. In places, this pulsation explodes into almost orchestral joy. For this is the point here. Ideas are deliberately suppressed, over and over until the only release is a frenzied eruption. If that sounds overtly sexual, so be it, but it is a hastened, frenzied sexual encounter rather than a dreamy romance.
When Errors first appeared in album form, on their debut of summer 2008, critics ranted about endless ‘possibilities’. The effect was to fire the band towards the joyous car crash of a record we find here, where twisted and warped noises are randomly wrapped around that controlling pulse beat… yes, that controlling heart.
It is too tempting to label this ‘post electro’, but the description, barely a genre at all, doesn’t suit them. Electro, in might be said, stopped and ‘fattened out’ and it is within this spreading process that we find Errors. What shines through is a solid precocity, a ferocious confidence and a somewhat ironic belief if a lo-fi attack. In short, a latter-day electro-punk, bristling with attitude and invention. The downside lies in that aforementioned movement between the two albums an one find it difficult to envisage a next step.
Nevertheless, there are fine moments here. The initial single, ‘A Rumour in Africa’ (great novelistic title) looks set to become a defining Errors moment and, given a little creative publishing, could well creep into many unlikely areas of television sound tracking. That course, although an offshoot, might well become their main thoroughfare, especially as they place the senses of pace and mood at the very front of the music. The darker, almost quasi-religious tone of ‘Black Tent’ (Another evocative title) would certainly support this.
Heavy touring is set to support the album and should lift them beyond their obvious niche at ATP and Latitude Festivals. However, their successes at these festivals are interesting, for they remain a perfect ‘sound’, whether discovered in Suffolk greenery or amid the pastel chalets of Minehead. Unhinged rather than aloof. It may not seem like it, but that is meant as a compliment. They will move on…but to where?
