10:04s
A Common Wealth
Independent release
The 10:04s are a bewildering construct.
Known for their gigs in and around Edinburgh they have been quiet in terms of official releases for some time to return with an album mastered by Dick Beetham, fresh from Alt-J duties, that has lofty ambitions.
Nearly into their tenth year, their namechecked influences now include Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Joy Division, The National, Leonard Cohen, Interpol and Arcade Fire.
Now this might confuse people who were wowed by past urgent post-punk nuggets like SOS and Bad Grammar which had more in common with The Buzzcocks and The Clash.
In 2018, the band are happy to inject some sombre trumpet and haunting strings on an album that often appears to inhabit the kind of downbeat post-rock territory that The Twilight Sad inhabit while trying to create songs you could hold an old cigarette lighter in the air to.
It opens with a bang. The lead single Harlequin sets the bar cloud-ward with a mournfully meandering boy-girl vocals anthem that leaves you gagging for more just as the final killer hook grabs.
The tempo and style changes dramatically but the quality does not by track two. The rampant Everything Is Going To Be Alright features a searing buzz-saw guitar hook and the hilariously dispassionate catchline, "oh no, you're arms and legs have gone".
Glasshouse ends gratingly, perhaps, with the kind of 'ohs' that you expected from Arcade Fire's Funeral phase.
Another highlight, Carbon takes the kind of thing Glasgow's There Will Be Fireworks were known for with layered dynamics, a soft introduction topped and with a ferocious guitar climax that knocks you for six.
The closer Lights Out is another corker, even though it has been kicking around in some form for six years and veers closer to their more spiky earlier material.
So we have an album that sounds like a career hits package; plenty of ideas, although little joining them together other than the individuals involved. Ideas, however, that are often intoxicating.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article