Spector – Here Come The Early Nights

A witty document of maturation that works on multiple levels...

At a time when other indie bands are making a comeback or celebrating their debut album’s ten-year anniversary, Spector prove their endurance and mark a life spent in music with the release of ‘Here Come The Early Nights’. A title redolent with pop culture references from The Beatles to Brian Eno, the subjects of their fourth full-length record are prosaic events such as aging, early parenting and recalibration of social lives and relationships that ensue. Most remarkably is the album’s commentary on political events, crises and global tragedies – how external events affect our inner lives. 

Opening song ‘The Notion’ sets the precedent for this textured, melodically alluring and lyrically complex album. In what may be their best work yet, Jed Cullen’s rhythmic guitar work carries the song, intercepted by a riotous distorted solo from Dev Hynes, providing the sonic basis for singer Fred Macpherson’s reflections on this period of global poly-crisis. Reflective of Spector’s mature songwriting, the chorus is split in two verses which rhyme and vary, highlighting problems in communication. “Stuck in the notion / Of hiding emotion” spills into “Stuck in an ocean of / Hopeless emotion”, as the optimism of “There will be bad days / But maybe not always” warps into a realist assertion, “There will be good days / But maybe not always”. It’s a clever song, shifting attention to sound, meaning and ideas within a glistening form.

Opening into a moody thrum of bass, reverb-laden drums and spangly guitar, ‘Some People’ is possibly the most musically intriguing song on the record. About imagined phone calls with friends who don’t pick up, the robust choruses are driven by vocal melodies caught on a knife edge between emergency and apathy. The album feels realer than its romantic predecessors, using production styles honed through EPs and displaying lyrical and melodic precision resulting from the long-time partnership of Macpherson and Cullen.

The dynamic ‘Driving Home For Halloween’ presents the realities of late capitalism alongside an intimate relationship, assessing the affinities and dissonances between both. As the parodic Chris Rea title suggests, it’s not all doom and gloom; moments of heightened emotion are undercut by tricksy wordplay, ’Halloween’ is rhymed with ‘limousine’ and ‘mezzanine’. The chorus is a layered, melodic plea fizzing with synth lines and rambunctious drums, “And I know you get upset / But we can’t just give up yet / The sun rises and it sets / Yeah we’ve been going round in circles for a while”. Macpherson questions what relationship issues look like beside financial crisis, “Front row for the latest crash / Paying in blood since the pound collapsed… Two trains on different tracks / What a beautiful setting for a panic attack”. A particular moment of bathos comes with the lines, “Who needs a surveillance state / When he’s got your location tracked” crooned over a characteristically indie-pop beat. 

Macpherson has never shied away from social commentary and politically-inflected lyricism – in fact they provide the basis for witty one-liners, see ‘Fine Not Fine’, ‘Decade Of Decay’, ’American Warehouse in London’ – yet these songs seem more consequential, coloured by the added responsibility of parenting. ‘Here Come The Early Nights’ eschews the self-deprecating songs of unrequited love from previous releases and finds its wit in the absurdity of existence in neoliberal Britain. 

The middle of the album struggles to sustain the quality of surrounding songs. Despite its percussive noir, recalling Nick Cave’s ‘Come Into My Sleep’, ‘Pressure’ fades into the background. The pop-punk pastiche of ‘Not Another Weekend’ rings disharmonious compared with sincere songs about aging. Likewise, album closer ‘All The World Is Changing’ would feel better suited on a previous record, its synths reminiscent of ‘Moth Boys’. 

Album tracks ‘Room With A Different View’ and ‘Never Have Before’ evoke a similar mood, pairing anxiety, loss and ennui with somewhat jubilant soundtracks, particularly the horns section midway through the latter. ‘Room With A Different View’ plays with fragmentary, syllabic lyrics akin to scrolling through a curated display of mid-century modernism, suicide rates, and ‘luxury lethargy’. The choruses expand clipped tension into long lines riffing on E. M. Forster’s novel and the rentier economy, exhibiting Macpherson’s doubled harmonies and a piercing guitar solo. Whereas ‘Never Have Before’ calls to mind unmet expectations and fears around ageing and death, “And I feel it like I never have before / The inevitable knocking at my door”. Despite our best intentions, Spector remind us that “Life is what you leave along the way”.

Marking this shift is the eponymous nocturne about not being able to go clubbing with a baby, a tender moment centring the importance of family and relationships in times of crisis. As previous phases of Spector’s output revolved around partying and London social life, this song feels like the end of an era, a coda for indie sleaze. Sparse and carried by percussive piano in the vein of Philip Glass, ‘Here Come the Early Nights’ is a beautiful distillation of child-induced FOMO, with poetic verses and harmonies recalling the earlier ‘Another Life’.

8/10

Words: Tom Branfoot

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