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Jonathan O'Tool

The Week that Was
The Week that Was (Memphis Industries)
Fizzing with ideas (although clearly not when it comes to band names and album titles) the Week that Was is the creation of former Futureheads drummer Peter Brewis, who with his brother David  is also one half of Field Music.
Musical influences popping up here include Simple Minds, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel and 1980s synth star Nik Kershaw to name but a few.
While consistently daring, Brewis sometimes struggles to shoehorn his surround-sound ideas into pop songs, as the bloated and awkward seven minutes of Yesterday's Papers  reveals. Yet many of the inside-out textures on offer here are a joy,  with thunderous drums and intricate percussion driving each song.
Warm strings and cool synthesisers interweave and play off each other, giving this set a more romantic lilt in comparison to the jagged punk of the Futureheads.
Kate Bush's   Hounds of Love bass line makes an appearance on the very pretty  Airport Line,  while It's All Gone Quiet  throws Balinese-style metallophones,  gongs and xylophones into the mix. Brewis  skilfully  conjures warmth as well as the arid doom and gloom of Talk Talk,  all the while singing resolutely in a thick Sunderland accent.
When the music isn't being overly cerebral (this is, after all, a concept album based on the world of invasive media and the crime writing of postmodernist author Paul Auster)  there are some moments of beauty that shine through the dense concepts.
The arrangements are ambitious and while Brewis wears some of his 80s influences distinctly, he's capable of distilling them in ways which haven't been heard before.



The Week that Was