Pistols At Dawn brings musical variety to its debut album.

 

With See You Home being Pistols At Dawn’s debut album, the band has successfully demonstrated its musical flexibility and innovation through their mastery of several genres. Transgressing past the boundaries of set genre forms and styles, fusing together both a softer and sometimes darker sound, Pistols At Dawn carves out an ambiguous image for itself.

Recline With Me is an inviting opening track for the album, acting as an accessible introduction to the band’s music. Indeed, the layering of vocals, forming awe inspiring harmonies combined with the unifying perfusion of the pairing of strings and drums causes an air of unity to surround the song, making it a perfect introduction to the album, as well as the band in general for those who, like me, haven’t come across their music before. The track is massively comforting as the amalgamation of its use of vocals as well as rhythm fit together like a jigsaw, leaving no guitar strum or key change out of place. Likewise, this idea of the album being tinged with softness is prominent in the track Forgone Conclusion which remains to be both calming and eerie. Cementing itself in the band’s ambiguous image, its tone is mesmerising as it finds just the right balance of escapism and mystery.

On the other hand, the musical progression of the album causes Pistols At Dawn to develop its sound into something more sinister. For instance, Please Report Anything Auspicious to a Member of Staff is perhaps one of the darker tracks on the album, with lyrics that can be seen as being resonant of the destruction caused by 2016. Did someone mention Brexit or Trump? No, just me? Okay then.

Moving on from the indie-pop tone of the beginning of the record, the ramping up of the electric guitar signifies a change in feel, something with more futuristic and somewhat dangerous vibes. Nonetheless, this stylistic shift still remains to feel a part of the album as the leading raspy tones counteract the almost harsh edge, somewhat sounding like a friendlier version of Tenacious D; In a good way that is.

See You Home offers up a myriad of sounds, as Pistols At Dawn remarkably resist the urge to lay their foundations in one particular sub genre. At points their tone is reminiscent of Elbow and offer up a homely feel. At other times associations with Everything Everything seem more relevant, demonstrating the vast coverage of their musical style. Due to the changing nature of the band’s sound, the album lacks any points of valid criticism. It will be interesting to see what the band do with their image in the future.