The Playwrights
– ‘Good Beneath the Radar’ (Sink & Stove)
(reviewed Nov '04)
The Playwrights seem to be a band assembled by one Benjamin Shillabeer in order to spread a message of discontent. The traditional line-up has a refined English punk sound, which should see them categorised with fellow odd sorts like British Sea Power: an energetic style mixed with careful recording that takes in typewriter clicking, a keyboard sheen, revolving guitars, and well-placed backing vocals / brass arrangements to punctuate their points.
It is the lyrics that provide most
interest in this album: though the music at times is certainly a sumptuous
backing, it’s usually covered in shouts and whispers, like the
post-punk of the Futureheads living in the present, with more instruments
and no accents. In this quick delivery the words of the Playwrights
become an almost incomprehensible mantra, dual vocals crying out to
be read to make as much sense as they should. And the lyrics are printed
as titles –
“I’m Not Anti-Romantic But Talking With You Is Like Reading
A Tabloid Newspaper By Flashes Of Lightning!”
- it’s like place names in a dystopian city, or Radiohead’s
fake billboards set to the soundtrack of their own post-punk fairground.
The head makes a cynical cut-up of buzz words, with a heart still working
high in some concrete tower block: clever, but holding out against ugly
modernity, the dulled but ever-deadpan worldview and stately arrangements
of Morrissey circa ‘Every Day Is Like Sunday.’ And therefore
in some odd way a life-affirming listen.
