Nine years on from formation, London’s Spector have returned with a new EP ‘Extended Play’. After a riotous first album, they were lead to precipice of the next big thing. The release of ‘Moth Boys’ was greeted well but, their spark had been lost somewhere.
Frontman Fred Macpherson, with Spector, Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man and Les Incompetents has seen and done it all. Spector has taken him to the highest heights, Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man unfathomably passed by and with Les Incompetents, one of the true great pioneers of the 00s ended in tragic circumstances.
At the core of all three, lies MacPherson’s integrity. So, when Spector announced they are releasing their most honest work to date, the gauntlet was thrown down to his own authenticity
Musically, any ghosts they had from ‘Moth Boys’ are laid to the rest. The synths remain but, their injected with the directness of ‘Enjoy It While It Lasts’.
It’s lyrically where the magic occurs. Leadoff single, ‘When Did We Get So Normal’ wryly looks at getting older and becoming your parents:
“Mortgages and marriages
Waiting in for packages
Now I know what average is
Now I'm one of them
More M&S than S&M
Two can dine for News at Ten
Voucher for my requiem
Now I'm one of them”
Macpherson’s vocal delivery is exquisite. Such is the conviction of his anguish, you’re left pondering, mid-life crisis or, Blackadder levels of scorn?
EP opener, I Won’t Wait’, pulls from The Cure, The Killers, The Jam, The Horrors, and early Kaiser Chiefs. Examining the apathy, we endure to keep relationships functioning, it shouldn’t be set to indie at its cinematic best, but it is. Within the chorus, scours nights lost to debates on his phone, long after he should have been asleep. Has a chorus been so brutally self-examining and piss-taking simultaneously?
“Your words still keep me awake
(I've been scrolling forever)
Rolling through the promises that we never keep
Why's my contract so expensive if I talk so cheap?”
Meanwhile, ‘Half Life’, outlines that death defying feeling an indie disco can give. The sticky floors, snakebite, and sweat flying in glorious pandemonium. With themes of youth fading through the EP, it’s hard not to taste the bittersweet though. An over exaggerated sense of getting stuck in for, these nights become less frequent in your thirties.
‘Simplicity’ is the realisation that, the precipice of the next big thing is paved with empty shells:
“Saying when they tell you they understand
That's your cue to get out while you still can
Cash it in and cancel all your plans”
At 33, Macpherson is focusing on family and close friends more. So, this EP should be a lame duck, right. Not a chance. There’s no pretence its 2005 and he his bouncing around the 100 Club to David Walliams. That fire still burns, but now, the muse is purer.