Metronomy - Pip Paine (Pay the £5000 You Owe)

  by Adrian Huggins

published: 15 / 12 / 2009

---

Review

‘Pip Paine (Pay the £5000 You Owe)’ is the debut album from genre benders Metronomy. Re-released on the 7th of December, the band are set to make yet more waves throughout 2010, having recently received more national radio airtime and also earned themselves a coveted spot on the recent BBC Electric Proms series. Mixing many different influences along the way, but usually categorised under the ‘Electronica’ title, Metronomy open this 2008 debut album with the single ‘You Could Easily Have Me’ which to me echoes of Queens of the Stone age with its droning and constant guitar loop and deranged feel. ‘Danger Song’ somehow manages to sound a lot more like what I saw expecting, with shades of Hot Chip and Simian Mobile Disco, but it is this diversity which is what really appeals to me about Metronomy. Enigmatic frontman Joseph Mount makes the sort of music that is so easy to really get into and really easy to love. With layer upon layer of keyboards, drum machine, various other squelchy noises and the odd guitar and vocal here and there, it manages to pay homage to the more experimental pioneers of electronica such as Kraftwerk and OMD, while keeping it fun, up to date and exciting all the while. On ‘How Say’ and ‘This Could Be Beautiful’ they make fascinating and atmospheric music that takes you away somewhere else instantly. They let you absorb it all in before bringing you back down to earth with the strange ‘Black Eye/Burnt Thumb’ which has an almost polka vibe to it. It is as if here some far out Eastern Europeans in the back of beyond had discovered some Korgs and made it their own. How can you not a love a band that can slip into sounding like this from out of nowhere? ‘Bearcan’ is yet another incredibly innovative and suprising song, which sounds as it were made using an empty beer can and some shed tools. The more mainstream stylings of Metronomy come out in the likes of ‘Trick or Treatz’ which is comparable to Hot Chip which the electric cymbals beating away underneath the more subtle squelches. One of the four fantastic bonus tracks on the album, ‘In the D.O.D’, is a striking modern piece of indie music. It blends guitars with a great use of keys and sampling throughout to make an intensely catchy little number. One thing I really love about this album is just how easy it is to get into yet it seems to be all over the place, atmospheric one moment, completely experimental and challenging the next. Well worth the re-release and I hope more and more people discover this fantastic band.

Track Listing:-

1 You Could Easily Have Me
2 Love Song For Dog
3 Danger Song
4 This could be beautiful (it is)
5 Black Eye/Burnt Thumb
6 Peter's Pan
7 Trick or Treatz
8 The 3rd
9 1 String Strung
10 Bearcan
11 How Say
12 New Toy
13 Are Mums Mates (Bonus Track)
14 In The D.O.D. (Bonus Track)
15 Hear to Wear (Bonus Track)
16 Another Me To Mother You (Bonus Track)

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/metronomy
http://www.metronomy.co.uk/
https://twitter.com/metronomy