ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Bombay Bicycle Club – So Long, See You Tomorrow
Bombay Bicycle Club take a ride into new worlds on album number four.
Album Reviews | Released
Bombay Bicycle Club – So Long, See You Tomorrow
(Island Records)
5 out of 5
In 1871, British engineer James Starley iconized the concept of everyday movement within British society. Infusing the lifeline of the community, with an address of currency from the penny and a farthing into a creative affirmation of fashion and almost useable everyday mobility. The result of this creation was an iconic resemblance of the height of that time in British culture.
The innovative debut – I Had The Blues I Shook Them Loose – from Bombay Bicycle Club marked another defining moment for capital fashionistas, led by the quartet and driven through walking bass lines, jittered guitars and melodramatic croons. A hipster generation was reborn, and Bombay Bicycle Club were heading up the insurgence. Driving a new inspiration for a shining gleam of inoffensive indie rock, a following of nostalgia hunters and even a few with a penchant for Starley’s two wheel wonder.
Having firmly cemented themselves as icons of modern day Brit indie rock, on their fourth LP outing So Long, See You Tomorrow, we see the four piece setting the wheels in motion for a musical journey up an uncharted new byway.
Album opener Overdone is introduced through delicate orchestral strings of a distinctive Bombay Bicycle Club nature, reflective of summertime bandstand picnics. Yet within a minute, offbeat patter from sticks man Suren de Sarem delivers a carnivalesque clean up to comfort the distorted grumbles of frontman Jack Steadman as he “Keeps the world awake, to be asleep throughout the day.”
Welcome to the new BBC, an electronica infused selection teetering on the eroding edge of barely recognisable indie rock. Nothing short of a sound delivered from a Jamie XX production, the collective have constructed So Long, See You Tomorrow to infuse new sound developments only possible from a band on top of their game.
“Is this the one, is this the place where it all stems from,” chimes Steadman on the following It’s Alright Now, continuing “Step away, step away, stay numb.” Laden with harmonies and pitching synths, the band have stepped far from the cut and paste bounce of the sounds that precedents them. Whether it’s the tired indie jangles that made the band numb prompting the reason for this drastic sound enhancement, this effect sees the LP reek of a band well-travelled and cultured to more than just nights in Dingwalls or days wasted in Hyde Park.
Take latest single Luna for example, rich in deep Asian percussion and taking sample from the snake charming melody in 1954 Bollywood film Nagin. The song sees the band at their most optimistic and uplifted yet, it shimmers a wealth of almost forbidden delicacy. With the effectuated backing vocals of Rae Morris matched by cutting panpipes, it delivers consuming beauty of cutting coherence and it’s here BBC may have just found their “Perfect Hideout.”
There is no doubt that Bombay Bicycle Club still solidly stand at the height of British musicality, So Long, See You Tomorrow sees the band colonising greater stretches of the world and culturalising their sound into greater musical diversities. Like the 16th century British Empire they are destined for greater global takeover while turning more heads than a penny-farthing, there is just a better chance that you will take this one out for a ride more often.
David Sullivan
