Singles

We Came Out Like Tigers - There Is Good Hope Thou Will Seest Thy Friends

Simon Jay Catling 30/03/2010

Rating: 4/5

Although dreams of rock 'n' roll stardom may seem far-fetched for many new bands in this money-free music-acquiring 21st century, one thing they can thank the internet for is for turning them onto enough influences to the extent that few of them now can be lazily pigeonholed into the city they're from. Take Liverpool quartet We Came Out Like Tigers here: they stand about as far away from The Coral/La's/early-Beatles linearity that, accurate or not, has defined many critics view on emerging Merseyside-based guitar groups; and has refreshingly become the norm, this matters not one jot. They're solidly in the majority of cosmopolitan sounding Liverpool-bred music- from the hardcore-indebted Cold Ones all the way across musical genres to electro-poppers Picture Book.

Except to lump We Came Out Like Tigers in with a majority in any context does a disservice to their music and aesthetic. Fiercely DIY at a time when the meaning is starting to become attached as tenuously as its 'indie' precursor was, the group often put on theirs and others' gigs, run their own music zine and, in this debut EP's case, produce their own packaging and artwork. There Is Good Hope Thou Will Seest Thy Friends manages to capture a lot of this blunt independence. There's an abrasion to it that goes as far as the ramshackle production, a scuzziness that harks back to the C86-era when indie was, like, "proper"; WCOLT are far from lo-fi bandwagon jumpers though...

For one thing their actual sound- amidst production that's more untouched as opposed to the knowing rawness off Wavves' records- bares none of those C86 influences. In fact, it's quite hard to see where the band do fall. There's bits in opener 'The Ends of Ends of Eras' that bare the hallmarks of Circle Takes The Square, or At The Drive-In at their most direct. Yet the gigantic sounding finale to this EP, 'This is the night, what it has done to you,' clocks in at seven-minutes long, comes doused in haunting shivers of violin and builds crescendo-like- its majesty dueling with vocalist Simon Barr's desperate screams like the cold smother of pillow on a suffocating victim. It jars alarmingly: post-rock being forced upon staunch supporters of the three-minute punk song, and as such the harrowing pain that seeps through seems akin to the agony the band themselves are going through musically. But it works well, as well-crafted juxtaposition within music so often can; and they do give themselves a three-minute let off of steam, with the white heat of 'Iron Sorrows' dancing a macabre jig over tortured call and response vocals. If the earnestness of lyrics like "this isn't a box to be labeled, for what for you is a display, we live our whole lives this way" is too much for some, then 'Remember When' provides the same on-edge menace and volatile fragility that's on offer elsewhere, sans vocal.

However, to try and deny the conviction that comes across is to shut out a major part of There Is Good... And why should you want to anyway? It's easy to hide behind apathy and self-awareness; to rise heart-on-sleeve above the parapet is increasingly a thing of guts in the music world. Though, as to be expected on a debut EP, We Came Out Like Tigers can do it impetuously at times, they also do it loudly, thrillingly and, on occasion, even beautifully.

Release Date: Out Now