Unparalleled brilliance from the dark environs of iLiKETRAiNS and the back-ally recesses of the world of chess.
Pay attention dear readers, iLiKETRAiNS, memorise that name! Let 'A Rook House For Bobby' mesmerise you with it's chillingly warm deep vocals, smooth and dark guitar and hypnotic beat. You'll be hearing a lot more from this band in the near future, without a shadow of a doubt. Being their second release on new label Kids, 'A Rook House For Bobby' tells the unnerving yet fascinating tale of former chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer. After winning the world championship in 1972 he went on to join an apocalyptic cult and had all his fillings removed for fear that they were influencing his thinking. From then on it was twenty years before he played his next competitive chess game.
In 1992 he took part in a rematch in Yugoslavia, the result of which was a warrant being issued for his arrest by the US government, as United Nations sanctions forbade Americans from doing business in the country. Arrested and then imprisoned in Japan in 2004, he now lives in exile in Iceland, but not in 'a house shaped exactly like a rook' as was his dream of 19 years of age.
It's an incredible story and an amazing theme to pick as the scaffolding to a song, and yet it gels so well with the quirky, eminently intelligent and formidable sound of iLiKETRAiNS. A tier above the similarly dark and shadowy Interpol, who are in themselves awesome anyway, and capable of inhabiting the same prized place of precedence on your record shelf as seminal original masters Joy Division.
Yes, this is without a doubt one of the best things that's been on my desk in a long while, with iLiKETRAiNS you begin to wonder why they ever stuck the 'stop' button on CD players. 'A Rook House For Bobby' is addictive and it will have you playing it over and over again. In terms of modern intellectual music making, an unequivocal masterpiece.