The North has produced many great bands.

The Beatles,The Teardrops,The Smiths,Joy Division,New Order,etc.

But somewhere at the bottom of them all in terms of recognition is The Bordellos.

The Bordellos is a sad story. From being unknown people who had one, genius album to playing small festivals with a bare line up of bass,vocals,dancer,guitar and a teenage percussionist. The bald effeminate chicken headed lead guitarist left, taking with him the keyboardist and drummer. From the next Charlatans, only not as irritating, to a bunch of hackneyed Charlatans walking the mope rock streets despite being superior.

But it wasn’t always that way.
This album of genius establishes otherwise.

Opening with Scream,an Arcade Fire like piece of sorrow with throbbing bass, whiny vocals and a bit towards the end where it goes all prog and skyward with pianos and feedback chorales.

The album also contains the skeletal broken-toy funk of Blank Letter, and the pulsing bass driven throb of Velvet Mind.

Poet Or Liar is an E Bow drenched piece of whimsy,with dual vocals both deep and nasal intoning of depression. The E bow drones through it all. Irt’s pleasant enough, like a less interesting Elbow have been spotted by Robert Fripp floating past on a drugged horse.

Hooked is a pleasant enough piano dappled ballad, starting with an opening line. “There is the bench we sat on the night we first fucked”. It’s pleasant enough but almost inconsequential. 

Perfect Time To Die is too short. It has a vague Morricone atmosphere, although featuring nothing to back this up. This is followed by Prince Of Discontent,which rips off Jumping Jack Flash to know effect, saying “I’m Jagger but not as obviously gay despite all evidence to the contrary”.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course, to quote Seinfeld in an out of context way.

Girl With No Name slides into the album like Kramer and has some very unconvincing trumpets on, and use of the word Senorita, despite the fact anyone who uses Senorita to indicate Spanishness is obviously not trying hard enough. Unconvicing trumpets does not “Once Upon A Time In America” make.

Among all this are two beautiful pieces of near prog.

“Too Old For Lovebites” is a masterpiece of understatement,a glowing jewel of bass led drone rock with almost whispered vocals and chiming FX heavy guitars recalling Kevin Shields if he wasn’t up in the clouds, more down to earth in the North, in a barn, surrounded by rats and geese.

It fades out in an Eno esque procession of helicopter noise,thrumming glitch and whispering unintelligible vocals. It’s so slight it’s barely there.

“How To Be Dumb” is a work unto itself. The scope of it’s influence takes in the Pet Shop Boys,New Order,Elvis Costello,John Cale and even some dodgy 80’s hair metal.

It opens with a solitary bass and by way of occasional interludes of seraphim and a strange garbled up child raving of cartoon punk comes to an ending of a single wind blowing across the tundra. But this album, however close to shoe gazing it sometimes comes, is never a sonic cathedral.

It’s more a sonic bus stop, stinking of piss in a very sonic way , on a sonic street, waiting for a bus full of feedback to come along and take them to Sheffield so they can stalk and shoot Jarvis Cocker. Or at least force the anorexic musical Dennis Potter to eat something. 

Christ he’s wasting away. Don’t let this band do the same. Find the album however you can. Take action now,or regret it forever.