The late François Truffaut, a pivotal director of the French New Wave Film movement, said that it’s impossible to make an anti-war film, because art concerning death poeticizes it in some way. I’d contest that when confronted with the loss of life, artists are at their most vulnerable, and therefore set themselves up for the most success or the most failure. Look at Kevin Barnes’ latest suicide-driven masterpiece, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, Will Oldham’s best album, I See A Darkness, or just about anything by Elliott Smith, to name a few musical luminaries. It is hardly a surprise then that Malcolm Middleton’s third solo release, A Brighter Beat, finds itself on the subject of death yet again. In a step forward and a step back, there is newfound maturity coupled with some unfortunate cliché.
Just like Into The Woods, this album is an elaboration on the same concept -- uplifting music with slit-your-wrists-in-the-bathroom lyrics. The best thing about this album, even more so than his last, is that you can tell Middleton is making this music first and foremost for himself. Like before, there are the upbeat tunes with sorrowful lyrics, but more delicately, the bright production over the otherwise grainy synths and guitars makes for an interesting and often unheard contrast.
This is lucky too, because the first half of the album is far stronger than the second. “Fight Like The Night,” the record's best track, is a satisfying dance anthem reminiscent of days of yore, but tracks like “Four Cigarettes” or “Somebody Loves You” are just too mopey, not to mention the latter being the most blatant Elliott Smith derivation one could imagine. The final “surprise” is a seven-minute, drum-heavy beast named “Superhero Songwriters” that ends up roughly where it started, with a few poignant moments in between. Here, like many other points in the album where the music fails, the lyrics do an impressive job of picking up the slack. Sorrowfully, optimistically, and enigmatically all at the same time, Middleton proclaims “Superhero songwriters/ Fixing to change the world from our rooms/ Maybe I should stick to writing wills/ Cuz I’m no good at finding ways,” before returning to the opening melancholy guitar licks and back into my good graces.
Overall, it’s worth trying to judge art by the boundaries it makes for itself, and Middleton pretty clearly outlines the standards he’s willing to set. When speaking of his work, Middleton says, “There’s nothing clever, hidden or political in any of the songs, it’s pretty much a ‘me’ album again, although I don’t think there’s as much complaining as on my first two records.” This is certainly true, and taking A Brighter Beat for precisely this will yield what the songwriter hoped for – an immensely personal pop soliloquy without much rich ambiguity. If you’re sick of the customary composition and time-tested hooks, go listen to something edgier (and I don’t mean that sarcastically), but if you try to read too deeply into this material, you’ll fall into a trap Middleton warned you to avoid.
More about: Malcolm Middleton
