The Whitest Boy Alive - Rules
A famous swipe sometimes employed by critics is to describe a musician’s output as nothing more than elevator music. Elton John famously said he didn’t mind his songs played in a lift if it meant that for a few moments people were listening to him. The startling thing about The Whitest Boy Alive, on first listen, is that they do resemble the incidental music pumped inoffensively into supermarket aisles and hotel lobbies. At times their sound is so easy listening it makes Dean Martin sound like Squarepusher. And if anything, Rules leans further back in the lounge chair than Dreams, the band’s debut from 2006. Back then it was astonishing how something so easy on the ear could prove so groundbreaking, particularly as it was largely a gamble at the time for band leader and lead singer Erlend Øye.
He had already found critical and commercial success with his folk outfit Kings of Convenience and then furthered this with acclaimed forays into dance with solo electronica album Unrest and a mix album for the DJ Kicks series. He could have quite easily milked these two veins for at least a decade, but before we knew it he was already back in the studio wearing yet another hat. To form a straightforward guitar band didn’t seem like a logical choice. But his vision was to strip the band right back to its constituent parts and build a warm, skeletal sound from there. Early fans swarmed to the handful of gigs the band played in the UK and Europe, often five or ten times more people being turned away at the door than could get inside the venue – a state of affairs neatly referenced on Rules’ album cover.
But while their gigs might be difficult to get into, their new material remains effortlessly accessible. Rules is laden with a few more creamy bass hooks than its predeccessor, one of which kicks things off in opener ‘Keep a Secret’. A synth line soon washes over the track and it builds to a Herbie Hancock-style workout. Following this is the breezy summer funk of ‘Intentions’, a tune Shuggie Otis or Roy Ayers would’ve been proud to call their own.
The band has been known to cover early 90s house records at their gigs, such as Technotronic’s ‘Pump Up the Jam’ or Robin S’s ‘You Bring Me Love’, and standout third track ‘Courage’ sounds like it could be one of them. Synth stabs pepper the melody, which is dark and clubby, and Øye repeats the word “courage” like one of the sampled divas from a rave tune. The song’s 50 sec outro is one of the album’s highlights. Elsewhere, ‘Timebomb’ proves to be catchier than a cold, before ‘Rollercoaster Ride’ slows proceedings to an introspective groove. Longtime fans will recognise that Øye’s voice is his most potent weapon, and he puts in a soul-filled performance here. 80s blue-eyed soul pretenders such as Paul Young or Hall & Oates only added that distinctive throaty resonance because they thought that was how black artists sang. Øye eschews those phonies, gushing pure soul in abundance with his own unique, youthful timbre. Whitest boy alive indeed.
Later, the outright funk of ‘1517′ proves to be yet another standout ~ funk constructed around lyrics such as: “People in Northern Europe since Medieval times/we’ve found it hard to deal with it when our dreams come true.” Not exactly Kool and the Gang, even if Øye does have plenty to say about relationships. Stylistically, No Wave bands such as Liquid Liquid or ESG are equally a point of reference to how Rules sounds, especially in faster, more compact songs like ‘Promise Less Or Do More’. The final two songs are arguably the disc’s strongest. The first, ‘Dead End’, rewards repeated listens and is sure to prove popular live. It doesn’t features scratchy guitars or feedback, but the track has more than a little in common with the The Strokes’ Is This It? Funnily enough, that band too managed to create an album of short songs packed with great pop ideas, successfully sounding both highly polished and organic. ‘Islands’ then closes the set. Running to almost seven minutes, it hypnotically builds on the previous song, working itself into a frenzy of high hats and jerky rhythms. … Continue Reading
Join the conversation...