Plumb - Field Music Album Review

Field Music

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Album Review

Arguably Memphis Industries' leading brand of forehead-wrinkling pop-act, Field Music have opted to ditch the longer drawn-out, yet successful, double-album concept of "Field Music (Measure)" and instead, unleash their fourth album of fifteen tracks with a running time of just over half an hour.

One could argue that this may leave the punter at a financial disadvantage since you'll be forking out around ten quid for a short CD. Not so. "Plumb" is worth the money, possibly even with another fiver slapped on top of the retail price (although let's not take the piss, eh lads)

Rather than continue with the overall straight-forward structures of the 2010 double-set, the brothers Brewis have plunged head-first into abstract time-signatures, lyrical fragments and a healthy dose of stop-start twitchiness that might have failed in other hands, but here it all makes perfect sense. The first few songs might not grasp you by the proverbials but, by song number 4, the erudite "A New Town", doubts are zapped and we're on our way to another fine Field Music assemblage. "A Prelude to Pilgrim Street" is a short but sweet interlude of barely 2 minutes, Be-Bop Deluxe without the solos, "Guillotine" fades in, gently bobs and weaves before turning into one of "Plumb's" highlights and "So Long Then" is a moody soundtrack to a coastal town lashed with waves, before it too skips off on a tangent. If you don't wiggle your buttocks to "Just Like Everyone Else" (surely a single), you are officially dead.

We also get undiluted XTC riffing on "Is This The Picture?", before an insistent piano-motif and gorgeous strings unveil the heart of "From Hide and Seek to Heartache". By which time, I have succumbed. Yes Field Music, you've done it again - you've set out your stall, displayed your finest newest trinkets and I've just agreed to embrace those jewels with clutched fists. And that's before hearing the 40-second acapella piece, "How Many More Times?". In fact, if there was any justice in this bleak and bland musical world, Sunderland's artiest siblings would be walking away with every conceivable award, rightly aimed at them for the plum job they've done on "Plumb". And it's short enough to replay again and again. Masterful.

Paul Pledger