Five musicians from five very different musical backgrounds all moving in five very different directions but all having one thing in common: they’re all in for the same big disappointment.
Benzo’s debut album perfectly crystallizes the problem encountered by too many bands at the moment: consummate and stylish delivery with a poverty of compositional talent. The sound is grand, elaborate and twinkling with all the protracted angst and intensity of British progressives like Muse, Doves and Radiohead whilst still nervously coveting the mantel of US vocal luminaries like the late Jeff Buckley. And let’s face it, if the success of a song was based squarely on the merits of title alone, then Benzos would be peerless: ‘You’re Forever An Hourglass’, ‘The Blue Around You’ and ‘Mechanical Comrades’ proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that you should always judge a book by its cover; if it sounds like shit, it’s more than reasonable to assume it is shit.
Occasionally however, the urgency, the earnestness and the queer eye for a song title meet in an unlikely triumph. Third track, ‘It’s Amiable’, with its now characteristic cosmic energies and atmospherics, stokes the epic fire with a very likeable and incandescent melody which far surpasses the ghastly bombast and grandiosity of the remainder. ‘Glass Souls’ tipsy hi-hats may recall the whirly peculiarity of ‘Paranoid Android’ but save for the input of the frightfully under represented Michael Ortega, there’s scarcely anything that matches the beauty and subtlety of ‘Letdown’ or ‘No Surprises’.
No surprises there then. Approach not only with caution but with a dose of smelling salts.