ALBUM REVIEW: No / On – Blue Statue
When you land your first album on the same label as a member of SONIC YOUTH, it’s a good sign. Even better if it was also once home to the likes of SLEAFORD MODS, still that doesn’t mean you’ve got a hit record on your hands straight away or at all. The London-based BLUE STATUE find themselves in that peculiar situation with their debut album No / On, with all the opportunity on their side of the court but with very minimal chance to claim it before the ball rolls away. Will their 90s grunge inspired post-punk effort be the ember to light the fire of a successful future?
The album opens with a mellow garage indie rock track Superlicious which doesn’t exactly arrive at what you expected when hearing grunge inspired post-punk – it is very 90s though. Not fitting the brief is fine sometimes but this would’ve worked much better as something to break up the album in the middle to distract from the existential teenage dread that 90s grunge will summon from your now 30-year-old husk. Lachrymose, now that’s better, much more fitting. Something a little angsty to put the edge on things, its shrill guitars and chanted lyrics find time to introduce the cagey and paranoid sound of No / On.
The record claims its title from the lyrics of Noetic where it should have either one of its massive punches or more solemn moments for that bigger effect but it remains in line with the majority of the record. Similarly, Maze Malaise sticks to the same guitar chugging riffs and repetitive melodies, grabbing at the monotony of a bank cashier or a supermarket checkout. For an eight track album, the middle is especially important to keep momentum going but all there’s to be found in the middle is a flat lining couple of songs.
Up until So To Speak the album is massively lacking in statement; nothing is particularly remarkable when stood up against each other but this track switches things up into a rolling guitar melody that pulls on something more careless and indie whilst letting it clash with the rougher grunge elements. It escapes, you couldn’t stop it if you tried; inevitability exists within it and everything that it brushes past gains a wistfulness to it.
You can hear the grunge inspiration that’s for sure, perhaps it’s deductive but the record sounds like at least two of the members have an In Utero tattoo. BLUE STATUE are so close to making the figurative gold dust that you so desperately want to grace your ears, but it’s too short and stubborn to embrace what’s found in So To Speak, instead opting to cling to the familiarity found in the rest of the record which hinders their own potential.
Rating: 6/10
No / On is out now via Fourth Dimension Records.
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