More jangulating gold from the bottom of The Tubs’ tub. Self-hatred has never sounded so good!

NOT A THOMPSON TWIN

So, then, album number 3 for The Tubs, and the first since signing to Merge records. Will this be enough to tip them from media and critical favourites into something more tangible? With an MO that dips between indie jangle and the vocal charms of singer, and lead songwriter, Owen Williams, it is that secondary aspect that has lit most fires. Older listeners hear an echo of Richard Thompson, guaranteed catnip for, well, folk like me. It would be all too easy to milk that aspect, to the detriment of the other undoubted virtues aboard, and, thankfully, that temptation is largely swiped.

POP SONGS

Their own media calls them “London based Celtic jangle boyband“, which suggests a proximity of tongue to cheek, and I like that. And whilst the 4 piece line up remains broadly the same, with 2 guitars, bass and drums, there are some guests around, to fill out the sound, with further guitar, some extra vocals and even a fiddle. Oh, so they have gone folk, you say, but you’d be wrong, very, at least inasmuch you would know it. Williams still seems not to have found any much joy to lighten his lyrical burden, mind, and for that we should be grateful, even if, as he warns, these sad and brutal songs are, actually, “just pop songs“.

HARSH & EXCITING

It is with the harsh and exciting jangle of the title track that the album opens; a near discordant clash of strings that immediately excites. As drums thump in, it is a glorious swirl, ripe for Williams’ feral howl to sear across the sonics. Lan McArdle add secondary harmonies, and keyboards give a tinkling mandolin like presence. The fiddle is more of a textural balance, and comes from Chris Haigh. It is all very trebly but this intentional. “Yeah ,you spend your money on aftershave, but when you go out you still smell the same” confirms no sudden enhanced self-regard. The rhythm section of Taylor Stewart’s drums and Max Warren’s bass peg down the guy ropes firmly, with newer guitarist, Dan Lucas slotting well into the George Nichols sized hole.

Whose Gonna Love You Know falls out the speakers in similar style, the question more a rhetorical challenge than expecting any actual answer. A simpler, brasher song, it feels just the core quartet. Much has been said around the Husker Du-isms of the band. Me, I’m hearing more the echoes of brittle Mancunian power-pop merchants, Any Trouble, off-set by the urgently hollered bvs. If You Don’t Love Me then mines in some 60’s pop tropes, in near orchestral flourishes of instrumentation, and some canny twang. It’s a slower song, but not by much, and, as the fiddle slopes in, it fits like an unexpected glove, ahead drifting off into a melancholic coda that is even less expected.

GUITARS FLAIL TOGETHER

Stoop To Me cements the Any Trouble/Gregson melodicism with even more jangle than Jangle city in Jangleland. The combined instrumentation seems even to conjure up a sense of a trumpet fanfare, which is heavenly. A further rhetorical gets asked in Heaven Or London, where Williams, together with his old Joanna Gruesome bandmate, McArdle, sing a chorus that leaves little doubt as to the answer. The bass is a high pitched barometer of intent throughout, as the guitars flail together.

Didn’t I Say is, by Tubs standards, a sweet ballad, harmonies a recurring pleasure, as the fiddle slowly scythes through very Teenage Fanclub meshed and strumming guitar parts. The production, or, at least, the recording, mixing and mastering, by Sam Ayres and Rachel Kenedy, somehow manages to leave a space between each of the strummed acoustics, electric 6 and 12-strings and more, rendering each string identifiable within, and, this is the strange, the dense combined sound. I still can’t quite work out how.

COVER ME IMPRESSED

There is then an almost seismic slide of style into the uber-pop of Do Yourself A Favour, even if the vein of expression remains distinctly jangular, with a delightfully cheesy keyboard tone running through the middle. This is a cover of a little heard Prince outtake, aka If You See Me, something that seems scarcely possible, given there being nary a squiggle or paisley pattern of anything resembling his Purpleness in this rendition. Add this to the band’s earlier single release of Metallica’s Fade To Black, and there is a sense that, should they ever deign, a covers selection might be fun. The repeated Walk On By mantra in the song brings the song of the same name briefly into memory, but it is all such a candy floss cascade as to not intrude on the enjoyment. The extra keys come courtesy Kenedy.

WHERE THE F?

From this undoubted peak, any drop back to predictable is dealt, and without fuss, by the trademark Tubs of Now And Then, an unselfconscious chug through self-loathing, lifted by the vocal contribution of McArdle. And how many songs end with a shouted 1,2,3,4? Then, just as you are thinking how little Thompson is cutting through into Williams delivery or even style, along comes The Way It Goes. With a fiddle and more mandolin like guitar combination, this is the first time the f word has overtly raised a head, but it isn’t even that much. well, not that much, the energetically strummed additional guitars offering another blast of the Fannies.

Hell is other people, or so they say, but Hell, the song, here seems more to be much closer to home. A superb thrash through, with no small number of neat little nuances tucked in tightly, specifically in the piano parts. A short track, it takes a moment to appreciate that, rather than the same song carrying on, after a pause for effect, In Your Place is actually a different song.

As the guitars spiral and sequence, so that becomes clearer, but the similarity is actually a strength. The bass is, I note, again, tremendous, seeming to imbue an uncanny Smiths-alike, if through a hall of mirrors. Haigh gets to sneak out a couple of stonking wee fiddle solos, too, that just add to the overall smile quotient this record has been relentlessly racking up. With a surprise, you realise this has been the longest song, as a smidgeon over the 5 1/2 minute mark.

CROONING & CRUEL

As Long As You Leave, much as with the last album, ends on a more sombre, sober note. A descending picked guitar arpeggiates, this from a returning Nicholls, and has Williams crooning, literally crooning, over background keys. The bass drops in a slow metronome, and this sounds like a song of reflection, were it not the bitter taste of the lyrical bile. Unusually, rather than being from the viewpoint of Williams taking a mirror to himself, this is painted through the eyes of a woman, spilling her venom, cruelly, on a man. (Although, to be fair..)

BEHIND THE PUSSY’S MASK?

For a singer who bares himself so openly, singing “I don’t wanna sell out this tour, don’t wanna play in The Tubs anymore” in one song, describing himself as “the singer of a ripoff band” in another, should we be worried? Or is this all part of his machiavelli? He has suggested he ramps all this deprecation up for these band written songs, thereby making himself out to be more unlikeable than he actually is. So, just another pussy cat, then? Let’s hope so, but, more than that, let’s hope there’s plenty more vitriol in Kitty’s store, as the songs just getting better and better.

Here’s Stoop To Me:

The Tubs: Website

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