Cut Ribbons – We Want To Watch Something We Loved Burn

An energetic and enthralling debut LP...

If you're going to name your record something as provocative and immediately striking as 'We Want to Watch Something We Loved Burn', you'd better have the songs to back it up. Luckily for Welsh quintet Cut Ribbons, songcraft is their forté, and their debut has been anticipated for a reason.

The band have spent the last few years strengthening their sound – razor-sharp synth-pop not too far removed from Two Door Cinema Club's early material, only with considerably more heft behind it. Their stock in trade is widescreen, hook-heavy music that walks a fine line between summery and melancholic; that it's being brought into the world amidst the transition into autumn is incredibly fitting. They've got the cinematic qualities of the likes of M83 or Passion Pit, and, in Lluan Bowen, possess a singer with a voice as distinctive and head-turning as Michael Angelakos.

Lluan's borderline operatic tones are complemented by the lower register of Aled Rees, and the dual-vocalist approach is impressive, heightening the effects of up-tempo power-pop cuts like opener 'Indigo', whose booming drums and shimmering riffs sweep the listener along on waves of energy, building towards an explosive bridge around the 3-minute mark that truly soars. It's a forceful way to kick things off, and flagship single 'Clouds' keeps things going with its mixture of joyous yelps and breezy guitars. File it under 'Songs With "Hey!" Hooks You Won't Be Able to Get Out of Your Head'; but unlike, say, one-hit wonders The Lumineers, you'll be grateful to have it rattling about in your skull for days on end.

The bursts of energy are deployed well enough across the record's 10 tracks that they don't become tiring, the most effective example of which is the coda of 'In the Rain', which builds to a wholly unexpected wall-of-sound finale.

If there's one criticism that could be levelled at the record, it's that there's very little genuinely new material on board; there are four songs here that haven't shown up on past releases in some shape or form. The punchy re-recordings of 'Bound In Love' and 'White Horses' improve on the originals, bringing them in line with the colossal sound Cut Ribbons have chosen to pursue, but having released 60% of the record elsewhere, there'll be little that's new to the band's older fans.

New converts will find plenty to enjoy, however; tracklisting gripes aside, 'We Want To Watch Something We Loved Burn' is as confident as its stadium-sized sound suggests; and now that they've cleared the decks and drawn a line under the first phase of their band, they're free to develop their sound as they see fit. This is an exceedingly promising debut record that should bring them plenty of attention – the eventual follow-up could be something properly special.

7/10

Words: Gareth O'Malley

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