Before reaching that age in which we make peace with our place of origin, it is acceptable to go through a renegade and non-conformist stage of detachment and escapism in which the spirit vehemently and dissatisfyingly demands that we see beyond our limits. earthly. It is at that exact vital point that the British team Nothing But Thieves seems to be currently, judging by his way of sketching the physical and emotional architecture of a dystopian and emptied city that serves as a conjunctural scenario for “Dead Club City”their fourth studio album and a sophisticated conceptual work with which they seek to delve into topics as varied and dispersed as our continuous exposure to audiovisual capitalism, the social changes brought about by Internet culture, and the respective influence of both in politics and the music industry.
Not only in the ambitious narrative that the Essex quintet now presents us can we see its evident leap in maturity, but it is also justified in its forms, being “Dead Club City” his biggest experiment to date and a brave attempt to explore genres unpublished in his record. The result of that precise urgency to want it all and to want it now, the group lurches without scripts or chains that constrain their eclectic desire to break the static molds of rock. And it is that with the security offered by having reaped a vast and colossal network of successes since their debut, Nothing But Thieves they seem predisposed to everything and they offer us without modesty or modesty cuts ranging from the most intimate and torrid RnB (“Keeping You Around”) to luminous ballads with a funky spirit (“Talking To Myself”), going through a two-thousander pop that can even refer to The Strokes (“Tomorrow Is Closed”) and a syncopated attempt at white psychedelia that remains almost (“Foreign Language”). The secret for these pieces to fit together, a priori so contrary to what the band is used to giving us, is undoubtedly the iconic voice of Conor Mason and the good hand of their guitarist and producer, Dom Craik, both serving as common denominators and direct responsible for generating a collective harmony that does not clash. And since we open the melon of the production, it is convenient and essential to highlight the careful detail in it, capable of transporting us on occasions to nostalgic parameters of eighties aesthetics at the stroke of synthesizer and melody with airs of glam-rock (“Do You Love Me Yet?”) or show us that not all pop with a media soul has to be loud or annoying (“Welcome To The DCC”).
The high percentage of risk in “Dead Club City” It demonstrates and confirms the desire of its creators to put their talent and inventiveness to the test, even if this also means going against the most traditional part of their fandom. However, if something confirms that we want to be part of that remote and exclusive club that they tell us about through their different courts, it is the intact ability to Nothing But Thieves to create catchy hymns full of optimism, something that not even his staunchest detractors will be able to doubt.