Back with their first album in six years, Spector prove they are more than their stadium smashing anthems of the early days with an album oozing with warmth and honesty.
Ten years on from their debut album, Enjoy It While It Lasts, the cult band returns with Now or Whenever: an 11-track album which looks back on the past and towards an uncertain future.
The album begins with ‘When Saturday Comes’, an almost cinematic instrumental track building anticipation for the tracks to come, starting with ‘Catch You On The Way Back In’ – an indie crowd-pleaser full of thumping drums, blazing guitars and Fred Macpherson’s signature drawl.
New tracks ‘Do You Wanna Drive’ and ‘Norwegian Air’ are stadium-ready anthems, littered with fatalistic musings typical of the band.
Co-written with The Magic Gang’s Jack Kaye, previous single ‘Funny Way of Showing It’ is a thrilling track, slowing and accelerating to become a shimmering indie anthem. ‘No One Knows Better’ slows the proceedings down a little bit before gradually building momentum (covering a bit of everything, from the fetishisation of coffee table books, to vindictive ‘plant mums’ and the decline of physical maps!).
‘I’m Not Crying You’re Crying’, written with MT Hadley, is the band at their most raw and lyrical, a fantastic contrast from the previous upbeat tracks – giving the listener the chance to truly appreciate the song and the amount of craft that has gone into it.
The final three tracks, ‘D-Roy’, ‘This Time Next Year’ and ‘An American Warehouse in London’ are Spector through and through – soaring baselines, twinkling synths and lyrics laced with cynicism.
Born out of an uneasy and uncertain time, the latest from the indie outfit embodies not only a collective anxiety but also an optimism to get out into the world and make up for lost time.
Rating
Now Or Whenever is out this Friday, January 7th, and is available to pre-order and pre save now. Spector are set to head off on a full UK tour later this month, featuring a headline show at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire on the 14th. For tickets and full dates head over here.
