The Delgados - Hate
(Mantra)
Incredibly prolific Scottish twee-popsters The Delgados return with another collection of warm and fuzzy pop tunes, heavily orchestrated and occasionally over-modulated ("The Light Before We Land" almost had me worried I'd have to shop for new woofers and tweeters before the disk ended). Not as coy or perverse or pompous as fellow countrymen Belle & Sebastian, Arab Strap, and Mogwai respectively, these dozen string-driven things are most closely related to the current kings of orch pop, Kent, Ohio's Witch Hazel Sound. One annoying setback throughout is drummer Paul Savage's distracting habit of beating the shit out of his drums like some reincarnated Peter Criss, rendering his backbeats totally unsuited for the accompanying material, as on "Light Before We Land," "All You Need Is Love," "Drowning Years," the coda on the overlong "Child Killers," "Never Look At The Sun," you get the idea. It's like hiring Keith Moon to play drums on a Nick Drake album. One thing that has always annoyed me is attention-grabbing antics of some drummers. Just shut up and keep the back beat. Like great film directors, the sign of a good drummer is their ability to be unobtrusive.
"Drowning Years" sounds like a boring Matt Keating outtake sung by Bernie Sumner, and the rest of the album is more of the same, alternating between fey orchestrations (blame producer Dave Fridmann, who also succeeded in transforming Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev from leading psychedelic popsters into this generation's Mantovani), ear-pounding drumming, and generally dull pap tunes, rescued every now and then by the tracks sung by Emma Pollock, whose Isobel (Drugstore) Monteiro-like vocals almost made me forget about that incessant pounding, particularly on "Coming In From The Cold," the album's catchiest tune and my early choice for the leadoff single. And somewhere under all that noise that sounds like the Battle of Britain coming out of your speakers rests "If This Is A Plan," complete with hummable melody lines and vocals that remind me of another Scottish band of yore, The Proclaimers.
Finally, as if to acknowledge that that horrible racket trying to pass for drumming is something us Yanks want to hear more of, we're blessed with a couple of US-only bonus tracks. Whoopdy-do! The topper is "Mad Drums," which probably should have been the title of the album.
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