Music Review//Teardrop Factory - Topshop E.P.
Teardrop
Factory are an indie band. They might not like that term, because for the past
decade it's been mangled and abused to the point where it can be applied to
Scouting For Girls and people kind of see the point. There are many epithets
for that kind of empty-eyed, chart-bothering guitar music, but none quite sums
up its desperate desire for lowest-common-denominator street-cred like 'Topshop
indie'.
Teardrop
Factory are a different kind of indie band; not for them the coveted playlist
slot in the mens section of Warrington H&M. This is the kind of band who
identify themselves only by their first names and have a website that looks
like a fanzine you'd find on a stall at Indietracks. Actually, they're the kind
of band that'd probably play Indietracks. Unkind writers might caricature the
Brighton three-piece going to sleep at night clutching their copies of Psychocandy
on vinyl beneath the sheets.
Suffice
to say, then, that the closest their debut 'Topshop' EP is getting to its
namesake store is name recognition. This record's influences are rooted in the
half-decade before Britpop, with woozy, half-audible vocals drifting across a
wash of distortion and reverb. Instruments constantly stray into each others'
frequency ranges, battling for dominance in the mix. It's messy, confusing and
exhilarating; it'd probably make Johnny Borrell jump right out of those awful
white jeans everyone remembers him for.
Opener
'Better Company' is a promising start, all Buzzcocks-meets-Galaxie 500
sham-glam with cymbals everywhere; it's also oddly low key in places, but when
the guitars kick out after the second chorus it unleashes some properly scuzzy
euphoria. It's hard to tell what the lyrics are, let alone what they mean, but
here and on the rest of this record that doesn't detract from the song; as with
bands like My Bloody Valentine, it's less about what the singers say, and more
how they sound that makes them special.
'Vanity
Unfair' is awash in male-female unison vocals, a charming fragmented melody
that floats across a choppy, crunchy instrumental. Swapping between major and
minor tracks may be an old trick, but it's still effective here; between two
moody minor-key songs, this major key number gives the record a lift without
otherwise being too different to its neighbours. Follow-up 'Stolen Skull' is a
belter, with a fuzzed-up riff that straddles the gap between bass and guitar;
of all the tracks here this has by far the most attitude.
Title
track 'Topshop' closes the record with a real change of pace; a mid-tempo, more
anthemic song with a sort of comedown vibe. From within the cathedrals of
reverb you might just make out the line “This is my shirt/and I like what it
says”, and for a split-second imagine the venom dripping onto the heads of
the Pigeon Detectives; but then you're swept away by the colossal climactic
riff and another wave of overdriven bliss.
Teardrop
Factory may not be fashionable, but damn, do they have style.
'Topshop'
EP is out now on Faux Discx.
Reviewed
by Edward Feery
