Unsatisfied?
After an all too familiar flirtation between callow youth and a major label Nine Black Alps found Island Records fluttering their eyelashes at the next pretty young thing after a while - forgetting about their last conquest. After recording and touring in the States with big names in the middle of the last decade Nine Black Alps have since lost a member, regrouped, rolled up their sleeves and produced their fourth record in Yorkshire entitled Sirens for indie label Brew Records.
The album itself is pretty much as you would expect from this group of unabashed Yankophiles; a somewhat polite British take on lyrical college rock and more amped-up grunge. There's dreamy whimsy on Phosphorescence and punk derived exuberance that documents the last few years in the band, "lately I've not been feeling so optimistic: living in a dream." Waiting Room strikes a similarly downcast note: "hope to hear you sing. Soon be on your way. Soon be on your way from this waiting room."
After this the guitars return jabbing at an urgent beat - the lyrics turning accusatory, "Am I your hand me down?" The love of Nirvana persists in the chaps' song-writing Penny Cinderella utilises a Drain You style drum pattern as guitarists David Jones and Sam Forrest locate the rock with an interlocking solo break and Forrest channels Kurt on the chorus of Another World. The dingey BRMC alike groove of Find It My Own Way and its crumpled solo ain't bad but these moments aren't enough to carry the whole record.
These songs coupled with the breezy pop of Away From Me and the elegiac closer Another World are inoffensively derivative of a time and a place that has had its time in the sun though you don't doubt Nine Black Alps' sincerity - they could have surely thrown the towel in long ago if they didn't believe in this. Given that motivation and the strength of a few of the songs on Sirens you would have to conclude that there are signs of life in the scruffy dog yet.