In the few years that Resonator’s existed, we’ve seen a handful of bands that we championed end up in that cloudy, depressing void of “not broken up, but not creating” murky ether. We’ve listened to a lot of singles, chattered incessantly at 3 A.M. about the majesty of tracks (”She waits for me” comes to mind immediately), drunkenly stumbled home at one in the morning after paying no more than 99 cents for two hours of music that we’d then blog about with great fervor, only to have the band responsible disappear into stasis.
If I mentioned how heartbroken I get these days when I look back at our 2005 and 2006 playlists, I’d bemoan for the next hundred words to the point of composing an entirely new Jackson Browne song. As such, I’ll instead re-frame this by mentioning what a refreshing surprise it was when a full-length album by Temposhark, alums of Future Next Big Thing Class of 2006, crossed my desk recently.
These boys, Rob and Luke. were responsible for one or two toss-off electrorock singles that never really immersed themselves in my consciousness the way that, oh, the music of Rock Kills Kid did, and truth be told they didn’t really stand much of a chance way back when for iTunes playlist time on my now-defunct Powerbook. As such, other than a cerebral knowledge of what the Temposhark sound reads like on paper, I came to the songs on The Invisible Line with an empty, open mind.
And I can’t be thankful enough that I did.
My first few times through The Invisible Line were listening through headphones on a discman (kids, once upon a time we didn’t have iPods!), and I was immediately struck by how cinematic the slick, synthetic orchestration that holds forefront through the entire album is. The teasing, taunting come-on of an album opener “Don’t Mess With Me” is meant to be played over a film’s opening credits, but it also serves as an opening scene of sorts for what Temposhark’s presenting herein. I’m told that older, more raw songs, like “Joy” have been reproduced, reconfigured and restructured to fit with the lush aesthetic that holds court on The Invisible Line, but I’ll again say that memory prohibits me from confirming or denying such claims. What I can say for certain, though, is that, for a band that burst into the UK dance-rock scene with remix singles, cheek, spunk and great face for photos, Temposhark 2008 sounds less like they’ve not aged a bit and more like they’re so far ahead of their time, so spectacularly, shimmeringly concerned with telling stories of scope and swath that they’ve damn near come back ’round to show dancerock how it’s done.
There’s not a wasted moment, not a tossed-off movement, not a solitary skippable song on the whole of The Invisible Line. A lot of this is owed to the fantastic, fanatic-grade nuances overlayed by the one and only Guy Sigsworth (causing me to give a silent prayer of thanks that Phones-it-in Epworth wasn’t tapped for board duties on the LP), soundtracking vocalist Robert Diament’s velvet growl with James Bond-worthy moments of swooping strings and cascading authentic piano, before Luke Busby’s beatsmithing creates moments of sparse, Tech-infused throbs of pulse. About a third of the way through the album, it becomes apparent, thrilling even, that The Invisible Line, while ebbing and flowing, is a connected path-the titular line may flux, but the pervasive mood never breaks.
Temposhark ft Imogen Heap: Not That Big
By far, the standout track on the album, at least after approximately ten complete listens, is this, Rob’s knife-cloaked-in-the-pillowcase duet with one of the Shark boys’ first champions, Imogen Heap. As the soothing opening gives way to fuzzed out guitars, a stuttering percussion line giving way to what, eventually, becomes a bob-and-weave chorus that’s less the expected call-and-response and more Rob and Imogen clutching themselves from one another . From the moment Rob decides he’d better put his “jeans back on”, this becomes the jilted breakup song of the year thus far. And we haven’t even gotten to the bridge yet.
Temposhark: It’s Better To Have Loved
A quiet, plaintive electro-ballad that shows off the two killer aspects of what make Temposhark so good-Rob’s voice and Luke’s way with a wrapping a subtle, minimal beat around a song’s meaning.
After what, for me, was the most lack-luster year in music in a very, very long time, the sound cohesion, of beauty juxtaposed with harshness, on The Invisible Line is pretty damn near perfection. Tell me, please, that 2008 is the year everyone quits worry about melting faces and goes back to melting dance floors and hearts simultaneously. That’ll be quite the accomplishment.
