DUSTED MAGAZINE

Dusted Reviews

The Wave Pictures - Long Black Cars

today features
reviews charts
labels writers
info donate

Search by Artist



Sign up here to receive weekly updates from Dusted


email address

Recent Reviews

Dusted Reviews


Artist: The Wave Pictures

Album: Long Black Cars

Label: Moshi Moshi

Review date: Apr. 25, 2012


The Wave Pictures are an impressively prolific British pop trio. Their website offers up a lengthy discography for consideration, some of the components boasting impressively low-tech cover designs. They’re also tight with folks like John Darnielle, Nick Lowe and Herman Dune; consider their smart-pop bona fides pretty well-established at this point. Long Black Cars finds them refining their tone a bit more: albums like 2008’s Instant Coffee Baby had a rough-hewn aspect to their charm, but there’s a greater restraint audible here as soon as Jonny Helm’s precise drumbeats enter the mix.

This isn’t to say that Long Black Cars exemplifies a particularly stripped-down sound, musically speaking. There’s a breakdown in “Never Go Home Again” in which an intricately-picked guitar takes over, and “We Will Cut Them Down In The Passes” has an early-’90s Billy Bragg quality to both its folk-rooted melody and its lyrics’ gentle pokes at militaristic clichés. The influence of Edwyn Collins looms even larger here. Singer/guitarist David Tattersall couples a wry detachment with a melancholy croon; it’s a familiar combination, but one that works.

That familiar approach yields powerful results when delivering lyrics that dodge expectations. Consider the nightmarish image that opens “Seagulls” — the sort of seaside pastoral gone horrific that echoes Ann Quin’s surreal novel Berg. Even as Tattersall’s vocals get anguished, there’s a bright, energetic melody channeled through the guitar that serves as its counterpoint. In the end, it’s these small, jarring moments that help elevate Long Black Cars beyond one specific tradition and into its own weird, charming realm. This album doesn’t reinvent the sound, nor does it subvert it — but on its own modest terms, it provides a concentrated dose of smart, verbose pop. Sometimes, it’s the simple pleasures that work the best.

By Tobias Carroll

Other Reviews of The Wave Pictures

Instant Coffee Baby / If You Leave It Alone

Read More

View all articles by Tobias Carroll

Find out more about Moshi Moshi

©2002-2011 Dusted Magazine. All Rights Reserved.