Durable, malleable and effortlessly fluid, A Certain Ratio have been making music intermittently for the best part of fifty years.
Tellingly, the band has never had a moment where their restless musical endeavours aligned with wider fashions or tastes. The role of perennial outsiders, however, seems to suit them. Whether in their formative, post-punk / Factory era or in subsequent dalliances with major labels at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, they were in the vicinity and occasional beneficiaries of, the Madchester and Britpop scenes, while remaining true to their singular vision.
All of this makes ‘All Comes Down to This’, the first track on their thirteenth studio album, something of a shock. While their previous album, ‘1982’, rooted itself in the past, this could only have been made in the last few years. Sonically, it would not have been out of place on blur’s ‘The Ballad of Darren’ with its compressed spacious urgency and (almost) pop hook.
Though it is the most immediate and obviously contemporary sounding track, there is a cohesion to the sound if not the style throughout the album, a measure of the instrumental prowess on display and the appreciably and refreshingly minimalist production of Dan Carey. The album is commendably flab free and there is little that sounds superfluous.
There are several standout tracks besides the opener. Like many of their lyrics, ‘Keep it Real’ is quietly and non-specifically political. ‘Surfer Ticket’ continues in this vein with a beautiful guitar motif and the Brucie bonus line, ‘nice to see you die/ to see you die, nice’.
There are, inevitably, nods to the past. ‘God Knows’ is perhaps the most musically nostalgic track, but rather than revisiting their own eighties’ sound, it recalls a minor FM-radio hit of the era, one that might have reached the outer reaches of the US, but not UK charts. It is smooth and non-abrasive, in a good way. ‘Out From Under’ is perhaps the most musically redolent of their early years.
On another high point, ‘Estate Kings’, the nostalgia is purely lyrical. A Donald Johnson reminiscence about growing up in Wythenshawe it evokes everything from Chopper bikes (‘the iPhone of the day’) to Ariel soap powder and ITV Saturday afternoon sports shows (‘in my world of sports, Dickie Davies is king’). It is in parts gentle, in others, funny and poignant (‘I don’t live in the ghetto/ I don’t live in the hood/ M23/ sometimes misunderstood’) but is unlikely to resonate with many under the age of fifty.
Elsewhere, the album is always listenable but not always entirely lovable. Reconciling pop nous with musical idiosyncrasies and the past with the present and future is an ambitious task over the course of ten songs. It is commendable that they manage to achieve this on ‘It All Comes Down To This’ without the outcome being jarring, but it comes at something of a cost.
For all their recent productivity and renaissance, A Certain Ratio are no closer to their zeitgeist moment. But with output as strong as this sitting alongside their back catalogue, they are all the stronger for it.
7/10
Words: John Williamson
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