Yeah, this one’s the real ‘un…
Midtown have always been a hugely frustrating band. The first couple of times I saw them they were simply excellent, all vibrantly catchy melodies and energetic crunch in bucketloads, but their records always underwhelmed me. Rather than capturing the punchy excitement of their live sound, Midtown‘s sound was flattened out and the moments of genuine interest were swallowed up amidst the stilted pop harmonies and there was none of the bite that made the ‘town such a mouth-watering prospect live (It’s worth noting that the fourth time I saw them, at Reading a couple of years ago’ they’d mutated into a dull pop-ridden emo band, light years away from the eye-catchingly visceral performance at the Underworld a year-ish previously).
Now, with a new album and a new deal they’re back to, well, sing a few songs about some girls. But ‘Forget…’ is a much more mature album than ‘Living Well…’, and the pop bite has been extended to a more lasting sound that relies less on cheap punk rock tricks and concentrates on forging a more cogent, Midtown sound. Take ‘Help Me Sleep’, a brooding rock number that builds slowly and crashes home with a bluesy riff that forgoes easy pleasures for a tougher ride, emphasising the song as a whole rather than concentrating on a few isolated moments. ‘Empty Like The Ocean’ has a simply huge backing to it, simultaneously straddling the easy melody of the guitar riff with the teeth-crunching heft of the rhythm section that pushes with an irresistible force, demonstrating how Midtown are just as in control of the hummable as ever before, but combined with a rock sensibility that impresses with its complexity.
It’s not that Midtown have gone all Blink on us and traded in their familiar melodic sound for a heavier, ‘grown-up’ angle, but that they’ve taken their strengths and built on them. Opener ‘To Our Saviour’ is all seething energy and as such is archetypal Midtown, without any of the cliché-ridden emo angst that diluted their abilities previously, and with ‘Is It Me? Is It True?’ they display a thoughtful command of cheeky melody that both goes exactly where you expect it to and surprises you with its richness of sound. It’ll doubtless be characterised as some kind of emo-rock-pop hybrid but the fact remains that ‘Forget…’ is in a different league to the current flow of anodyne pap flooding over the Atlantic because of tracks like the cinematic ‘Nothing Is Ever What It Seems’ are so well constructed that any charges of predictability are immediately palmed aside.
It’s not a perfect album, but it is a surprisingly good one: if you’re expecting a collection of pop anthems then you’ll be disappointed, but only if that’s what your heart is set on. ‘Forget What You Know’ succeeds because it marries Midtown‘s earlier catchy melodies and vocal harmonies with a far more impressive collection of songs that firmly oppose themselves to the traditional emo or pop-punk template. Interestingly brave, and pleasingly different from what I expected.
Ben
www.midtownrock.com