We Are Scientists whisk you off to the disco with new album ‘Lobes’
The day we all stop smiling at We Are Scientists will surely be a sad one, but thankfully it still hasn’t arrived yet. The comic indie stalwarts are back with another upbeat record to remind us all of the lighter side of rock ‘n’ roll. Lobes is a breezy disco record with an eye on the live stage, where it will whisk up a ball among the attending revellers in the live realm.
In many ways, despite the fact that the album drifts away from the indie guitar riffs on which they first built their name, it still typifies them as an outfit. While countless acts from the MTV 2 era have fallen away, We Are Scientists have always stayed true to the central tenets of having fun with music and rolled with the punches of a changing zeitgeist. They never took the scene too seriously to begin with—taking it for what it was worth and evolving thereafter.
As Keith Murray quips: “It’s nice that things have come full circle. Strident old Keith would have argued that funk was the one true musical genre. And here we are, with our funkiest tune yet.” And strident proves to be an apt adjective, given that the album has a bold aura of carefree liberation. Leaning back on the solid songwriting craft that they have honed over the years, they have ushered their oeuvre towards the nearest mirrorball for a refreshing change filled with the same old charm.
As Murray adds: “When I was a younger, more brazen guy, I was incredibly steadfast in my beliefs. Everything I liked was not just ‘enjoyable,’ but ‘categorically good,’ the people I hung out with were not just ‘fun people,’ but the ‘best gang,’ the ideas I subscribed to were not just ‘interesting,’ but ‘fundamentally correct.’ These days, I’m just way less sure about everything.”
But the things they are sure of, they continue to dish out in abundance. Lobes has more opulent hooks than the Alnwick Fishing Tackle Museum, its poppy rhythms are readily surfable, and the choruses arrive like the most efficient Tapas restaurant in Madrid. It’s easy for We Are Scientists, maybe a bit too easy at times, but they’ve earned enough credit through shining individualism to warrant a blind eye in that regard.
Sure, some of the songs are very samey, and the album might be funk, but that pertains more to a guitar peddle than any ground-breaking indie-funk bridging leap, but I’m not sure anyone will care as they bask in the upbeat flow of an album free of woe for a change. And there is relatable depth enough in the lyrical urban tales for you to delve beyond the surface to boot.
Perhaps most importantly, that fun can be pictured live as you listen. During their indie zenith, sticky dancefloors were at the centre of music releases, now that seems to have waned across all genres, and a swathe of songs fail to capture a feeling beyond the studio—they seemed trapped in a stereo world, bound by dials and bedroom doors.
However, We Are Scientists crucially break up the funk of this new record with an assegai of darkened room imaginings, spilling a flat two-pinter while dancing to ‘Settled Accounts’, and bustling out of the venue with ‘After Hours’ ringing in your ears and a shit-eating grin on your face. Lobes is good clean fun, and I like it. I’m sure others certainly will too.
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