Staff Reviews

Alphabeat - The Beat Is

Review by Aaron Lavery

As one anodyne track woah-woah-woahs into another, it’s difficult to guess what’s gone wrong. Has the band intentionally wiped any trace of personality from this record? Or has the label had to step in and try to salvage anything, however terrible, from a particularly poor wreckage? »

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alphabeat are special for a number of reasons. for one, they're from the danish version of motown - their hometown of silkeborg is famous for its huge number of car dealerships. for another, there's loads of them, six in fact. anders sg sings, as does stine, anders b plays guitar and some keyboards and is quite the whizz in the studio, rasmus is the band's resident keyboard player, anders r plays bass and is another keyboard player while troels is the drummer - without him, there is nothing. they went to school together and aged fifteen (they're now all in their early 20s) they formed a band. they first moved to london in the summer of 2007 around the release of their debut top ten album 'this is alphabeat' and the huge pop smashes and playlist staples 'fascination', 'boyfriend' and '10,000 nights'. they lived in a big house together. in hackney. now, rather sensibly, they live in three different houses, which is a bit like the beatles in hard days night except that was four. or was it two? anyway, it's in these three houses that they've written all these incredible songs. alphabeat are survivors. alphabeat are explorers. alphabeat are incendiary live performers. alphabeat are the only real pop band in the entire world...alphabeat's new album, 'the beat is...', has its eyes dead set on the horizon ahead and is full of great songs built on properly affecting retro-pop styles. you'll have heard the mantronix-like funk-pop of first single 'the spell', but there's the slippery filter-house of 'dj', the piano-riff-meets-speaker-rattling bassline of next single, 'hole in my heart' and the r'n'b touched, down-tempo reach of 'q&a'. you might go for 'chess' with its fantastically pointed opening line, "baby let's quit playing chess, you've been to my address" and pitch-bend vocal samples rarely heard since 1989. right near the end of the record is the epic, euphoric bliss of 'the right thing' where a black box style big piano screamer tumbles down a huge great chasm of a breakdown. no need for a remix - everything you'll ever need is right here.
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