Consistency can be something to strive towards if you’re a band like the Kaiser Chiefs who write a couple of killer hits and have to pad out their album with achingly obvious also-rans. But for a band like Film School? We just wish they’d actually used some of the silly ideas that they were too sensible and cool to let outside the practice room walls, rather than this amazingly polished collection of sound that slips over the other side of the consistency scale on to a big pile of dull and dreary.
Their sound – the big swathes of rich guitar loveliness and the kind of ominous aura that Interpol practically have trademarked – it’s a nice sound and they do it better than most. Really, they deserve credit for making an atmospherically absorbing album. But it’s so dense and moody and slow at getting to the point that I hardly noticed the disc kept jamming from the scratches it acquired in transit.
If you like dwelling on gloomy thoughts and find Interpol too fast and exciting and fun, ‘Hideout’ might just be what you’re looking for. Otherwise, life is just too short for this kind of painstaking introspectivity.
