It’s hard to tell whether Britain is a conqueror or the serially invaded, imperialist or napkin for every culture’s coffee spill. No wonder they really love Gomez over there. The third proper full-length album from these Manchester lads, In Our Gun, continually stalks the fine line between being influenced by other artists and blatantly ripping them off.
The album’s singles have been topping the British charts for several months. So why do they never float across American airwaves, despite being on a major label? Maybe it is because we’ve heard it all before. On the prior albums, it was fun to play a game: “Guess what was in Gomez’ gramophone/45/tapedeck/ CD player while it wrote that song?” However, on In Our Gun, the borrowing becomes even more shameless.
Gomez is an equal-opportunity shoplifter?no genre or time-period goes unraided. The band swirches easily from the dub-influenced opener “Shot Shot” to the Belle and Sebastian-esque ballad “Sound of Sounds.” On that track, it not only steals the style, but even the opening melody of “I Fought In A War.”
None of this is to suggest, however, that the album is not an excellent listen. Gomez is the Thomas Crown of musical thievery?the band lifts with exquisite taste and precision. Music press typically refers to the band as “blues-rock fusion,” but the sound, especially on this album, is far from the Delta. If there are blues elements remaining, it is only in the lead guitar riffs, which have greatly diminished in importance to the band’s sound.
The courage to be derivative is not uncommon?no one gives Creed any credit for its sacrifice to the sounds of Eddie Vedder. However, Gomez has the true flair for derivation. This can backfire: The Spanish-style guitar plucking sounds lovely on “1000 Times,” but it is far too reminiscent of previous hit “Rosalita,” as well as too jarring in the company of beat-loops and electronic fuzz to fit well into the album. Gomez seems to have embraced the progressive-rock label as an excuse to avoid cohesion on the album. Placing noisy psychedelic funk like “Drench,” right before bluesy “Ballad of Nice and Easy,” makes no sense, even in a genre devoted to uncomfortable juxtapositions.
The best song off the album, for real Gomez style, is the anthemic “Ballad of Nice and Easy.” It is also the last track—Gomez has a habit of finishing off an album with a bang; the saxophone epic “Devil Will Ride,” ended its last album, and the band even covered the Beatles’ “Getting Better” for its compilation disk. When you’re a rock band from Manchester, to cover the Beatles takes balls.
The one element lacking on this album is the lyrics. They are obtuse without reason, and the band mumbles the verses as if it doesn’t quite want you to realize quite how trite some of its words are. Although Gomez has never been of the Bob Dylan “poetry in music” school, previous albums have at least had hum-along choruses even when in techno-style songs (though you’d never catch yourself singing Gomez in the shower.) The most meaningful verse on this album is probably found in the title track—it’s ostensibly about soldiers in World War II, but is “so we sit in our gun / and we wait for our turn / to destroy on command all that came and then quit” the most meaningful thing that can be said if you’re going to sing about a war you weren’t born for? But techno is still all well and good, and songs like “Ruff Stuff” do fine with repetitive choruses?”I’ve given up fags and drugs now baby / I’ve had enough of the rough stuff baby.” If this band aspires to balladry, it’s going to have to do a little more soul-searching.
Ultimately, these guys seem in love with sounds and music—all sounds and all music. No less than three of them sing, and between them they might have an entire orchestra’s worth of instruments, so even though this album won’t change your life or inspire you to make passionate love to your woman, it’s kinda fun. And as the band says in “Blue Moon Rising,” “some people like that.”
