In the Post #75: We Were Promised Jetpacks – Act on Impulse
‘Act on Impulse’ is the recently released taster for the forthcoming We Were Promised Jetpacks album ‘In the Pit of the Stomach’, to be released on Fat Cat on the 3rd of October. The very definition of a slow builder, this majestic track features a no less than 2-minute intro, with simple plucked guitar and kick drum developing into a complex groove of hypnotic future echoes. Suddenly, the edifice vanishes, and the song is afoot.
With an opening couplet of “He died alone / he died on impact”, this is never going to be a floor-filling party tune. But together with the second verse’s “we act alone / we act on impulse”, a sense of the song’s portent starts to develop. But before the sombre lyrical content can be fully realised, the attention is grabbed by a full Mogwai of sound, the vocal fading behind a morass of layered guitars. The drums are processed to within a micron of their life; guitars are similarly thrashed. A plaintive repetition of the vocal refrain later, it’s all over.
On this evidence, ‘In the Pit of the Stomach’ will be full of grand gestures, powerful arrangements, and serious if not maudlin lyrical content. Just the ticket for those ever-lengthening autumn evenings.
8/10
Download ‘Act on Impulse’ for free by entering your address below. We Were Promised Jetpacks go on the road in October (details here), right after the new album’s release on 3 October.
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