Mystery Jets - Curve Of The Earth
- Written by Rob Crozier
Curve of the Earth is the hotly anticipated album from Mystery Jets. The English indie rockers have been making waves ever since their debut, Making Dens back in 2006. This new album sees the band in a confident mood and has nine new tracks for our listening pleasure.
‘Telomere’ the lead single and opening track, finds the band's singer Blaine Harrison’s vocals welcoming us back to their many talents. The track is defiant and unwavering in its approach and displays a band who are settled into a newer style and approach to their music.
‘Bombay Blue’ seems to reflect the bands ability to dip their toe into a lost nostalgic tone, yet still able to appear fresh and inventive. Harrison's soaring vocals again elevate their sound and add a warm comforting feeling to our ears. The retrospective feel of the album continues with the lyrical content of ‘Bubble gum’ yet the sound is a mixture of controlled, growling guitars and soaring synths.
However this changes with the beginning of the following few tracks, ‘Midnight’s Mirror’ leads off into something different from what has gone before. It’s a darker track that, although is still reflective in its subject matter, seems more controlled with its changes of tempo. The track shifts its emphases between vocal and sound, which generates a wonderfully warm, uplifting track. The album then appears to continue unbroken with an unchanging style via ‘1985’. This starts with simple piano and vocals which plunges our ears into an even deeper, darker sound with Harrison’s vocals lamenting:
"Saturn will return us to 1985 when we were just a spark in two young lovers’ eyes".
'1985' is then transformed to an onslaught of swirling guitars, like some lucid dream, which forces us to think of our own humble beginnings and once again shows the powerful ability the band has to create wonderful, sweeping soundscapes. Curve of the Earth then morphs into ‘Blood Red Balloon’ which continues to feels like a throwback to the early 1970s. Yet again the band are able to mix this sound with their own modern interpretation with the use of swirling synths that lift the track out of nostalgia and place it in the new. With ‘Saturnine’ wrapping up this collection of sounds it begins to feel like some grandiose forgotten Pink Floyd album.
The whole album is an almost deliberate attempt to seemingly move away from the quicker, rocker sound that the band have previous produced. They now seem confident to concentrate on melancholic and more emotional sound. It remains to be seen whether their fans approve as they move away from their rocker beginnings. Personally this new collection of tracks display a maturity and an ability to move into more subtle and complex song writing, which should please the vast majority of listeners.