Field Music, 'Plumb'

The opening is more than faintly reminiscent of Pet Sounds’ playful use of sound and instrumentation, with bells glistening and a piano playing softly before Wilson’s shadow falls on the music with the introduction of the cello and violins. This track Start The Day Right begins the album’s obsession of the real and surreal. The cover is an illustration of a petrol station fading into a real image of trees with the occasional cut-out cast of a man with a shopping bag or post box, before the lines of the picture drift into an expansive lilac sky. Field Music’s catalogue is one frequently commenting on the every-day (Sorry Again, Mate) and the unsaid (Choosing Sides) but juxtaposed with lush instrumentation and sympathetic harmonies that give what would be bleak or mundane situations an almost cinematic gloss.  Dreams and nostalgia are prominent themes in ‘Plumb’, especially with the faded romance of From Hide and Seek to Heartache or the touching eulogy of So Long Then, and the band never fail to remain poignant and understated, making this a remarkably touching as well as enjoyable album.

Musically speaking, the album does not leave you wanting. 2010’s ‘Measure’ was a musical feast: a twenty-track double album of riff heavy pop-prog nuggets. I wondered how well Field Music would fare after having invested so much material in their previous album, it isn’t so hard to believe that their inspirational well may have dried. Whilst ‘Plumb’ isn’t short of riffs, it shows an evolution that has been taking place in their albums. Songs like Give it Lose it Take it, from ‘Tones of Town’, became more intricately linked in ‘Measure’, with tuneful lament Precious Plans fading thoughtfully in before their sonically experimental See You Later. ‘Plumb’ is an experience as a whole. There are definite singles - (I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing, Is This The Picture – but unlike the previous album, many of the tracks demand the context of their forbearers. How Many More Times? and Ce Soir are as fundamental to one another as coffee and cigarettes. This is far from a bad thing. The album is less segmented but somehow more succinct, punchier at times but overall an experience through genre and sound, paying homage in kind to the Beach Boys, ELO and Pink Floyd – still remaining contemporary and progressive.

The album may not be to everyone’s taste: Field Music are not ones to dumb down their songs and the shifts in tempo and atmosphere are quick and many. However, with their fourth album the Brewis brothers have managed to make an intellectual and dramatic album, with wide sweeps into dream-like happiness and crushing English modesty.

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Download their track (I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing free here.