Taking a different spin on pop, Performance are back with the follow up to their 2007 debut, (We Are) Performance.
‘Reptile’ bursts out like a Cure song backed by synths and a wave of passion that is clear from the intro. Sure enough, the lyrics are questionable but the echo on the vocals give the track that ‘stadium band’ feel.
Credit to Performance for keeping this album interesting at every point; ‘Eleanor’ being a prime example of what this band are capable of; soaring pianos and gentle acoustic guitar playing across the crashing of the sea in the background and a choir of vocals.
The band create a new dimension for themselves, with ‘New Beginning’ sounding like Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine with a tame amount of feedback and a pop twist.
The band do have their low points too though. ‘Miracles’ starts with the military drums and flaunts that generic synth sound throughout, female vocals were a bad choice on this particular track too. ‘Unconsoled’ seems much the same as ‘Miracles’, apart from featuring a terrible Brian Molko sound-alike.
The band pull it back with tracks like ’15’ and ‘Karaoke’. The latter is a beautiful electronic soundscape of triumphant chimes on the synth that progresses well when the tempo increases and makes the song a bit more dance worthy. The opposed vocal harmonies work very well together on ‘Karaoke’.
Performance rarely fail when it comes to making more ambient tracks like ‘Karaoke’ or ‘Eleanor’, but can get it wrong when they try to speed things up. There is quite a lot of songs on Red Brick Heart that are a bit faster that do work very well though. Certainly an improvement on their first album, as they seems to have established a stable sound that suits them a bit more.
