BACK IN THE GAME WITH A MIXTURE OF LAIRY SINGALONGS AND POP BALLADS
GTHE FRATELLIS: EYES WIDE, TONGUE TIED
COOKING VINYL laswegian trio The Fratellis are celebrating ten years of togetherness – although that does include three years when they were on indefinite hiatus and frontman and songwriter Jon Lawler (aka Jon Fratelli) pulled away to try something different, briefly forming new band Codeine Velvet Club – which favoured a coquettish male/female dynamic and finessed brass arrangements over laddish indie knees-ups – and then following this up with a solo album
Ultimately, nothing appealed to the masses quite like those cheery, beery Fratellis songs, and so the band reconvened three years ago with the zeitgeist having moved on but the memory of their terrace indie anthems still very much cherished by the fans.
The world is no longer theirs on a plate; instead, the band have grasped the opportunity to tour more rigorously than ever before and then, fresh off the tour bus, to head straight into the studio with Tony Hoffer, the man who produced that instant hit debut album, Costello Music, and still professes to being their greatest fan.
The majority of Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied was written and recorded in LA in a four-week flurry after jettisoning a previous attempt to record on their own. They strike early with the repetitive hooklines on opening track Me and the Devil but it’s an otherwise moody mooch of a track with a slight air of menace as Lawler contends that: “I’m going to sell this soul of mine.” The following Imposters (Little by Little) is a breezily chugging country number, rudimentary but with some leavening twang.
These two rather tentative tracks were the only songs to survive from the band’s first run at recording the album. Hoffer takes over from here and Baby Don’t You Lie to Me! recaptures the momentum and swagger of their early lairy singalongs – fine if you like that sort of thing.
Thief is beefy, glammy indie rock with one of those wordless Kasabian choruses for maximum air punching potential, while Rosannaun comfortably straddles their tendency towards stodgy rock with their fondness for cabaret storytelling.
Desperate Guy is a much more characterful, country-influenced ballad with some shimmering pop touches which speak to Lawler’s love of classic MOR songwriting in the Neil Diamond/glen Campbell mould.
Speaking of Mr Diamond, Slow is a creditable stab at a heartfelt pop ballad, the kind which prevails outside of musical fashions and could be interpreted by any number of artists. “If you’ve got to leave me, baby won’t you do it slow?” Lawler entreats, as over-produced strings swell up around him. Too Much Wine is a rude awakening; a soused bar room boogie with distorted guitar and a sly reference to “creeping up the backstairs” which may go down well live but stands in entirely unsubtle contrast to the closing Moonshine, an altogether more beguiling, romanticised take on being wrecked and emotional.