Artists Of The Year

CMU Albums Of The Year 2009: The Big Pink – A Brief History Of Love

By | Published on Tuesday 8 December 2009

As we head towards the end of the year, we’ll be revealing, in no particular order, our ten favourite albums of 2009. Today, The Big Pink’s ‘A Brief History Of Love’.
 
The Big Pink’s debut album ‘A Brief History Of Love’ has been on heavy rotation since it arrived in the CMU office back in August. Formed by Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell, who for several years have made and promoted noise at various levels of extremity, The Big Pink is very much an extension of that past. However, here the duo have avoided drowning absolutely everything in distortion, leaving melody and pop sensibilities exposed.
 
The tone of the album is set perfectly by opener, ‘Crystal Visions’, which is surrounded by swirling guitars, which buzz and flicker, getting ever closer. By the end of the track they sound like a swarm of angry wasps encircling your head, but Furze’s vocals remain melodic and intimate, cutting through the noise.
 
As well as all manner of shoegaze bands, the album’s most overt sonic reference point is The Verve, particularly in the deadpan vocals and lyrics, which are summed up by one line in ‘Frisk’: “If this is love, then I was just leaving”. In fact, for the most part, the history promised in the album’s title offers up a fairly dim view of love, often focusing on the fallout, or the period after the initial rush of excitement. Very Ashcroft.
 
Despite all this, the album’s actually pretty upbeat, as the football terrace-style chanting ‘Dominos’ now elicits when performed live attests. And while you’d expect the wall of sound element of the recording to be a barrier for most, those pop elements seem to draw people in. That balance of noise and pop is no easy thing to get right, and that The Big Pink have managed it over an entire album is worthy of an Album Of The Year nod on its own.
 
Buy from iTunes
Buy from Amazon
Listen on Spotify



READ MORE ABOUT: