Big Truck: Midday At The Middleway

4

There’s something Love and Rockets about this band right out of the gate. I think it’s mostly a production thing. I’m not sure it’s like goth-tinged indie rock or indie-tinged goth rock. Or neither, really, as the second song almost downshifts into some of the more melodic, bouncy side of The Cure. And while the band’s music harkens back to that 80s Brit KROQ rock, it both sounds like it and also doesn’t. But still way British. I can hear a lot of other more modern things in here, as the production mixes acoustics, electric guitars and a pretty varied grab bag of tempos and textures. And while the bottom end is heavy — again, typifying that 80s goth thing — there is a pop airiness to the top end.

And that’s only the first couple tracks, because all of a sudden on track three we’re doing that Brit talk-singing thing they just love to do. Talk the verses and then sing the chorus. Kind of. Because it too is mostly talking filled with attitude. It’s as if every English band in this kind of post-punk, indie rock pot needs at least a couple of these songs. I’m sure there’s a name for them. It’s not quite Art Brut level, but also not quite Arctic Monkeys because it doesn’t bop like that. And then you get “Surf the Suffering” and you have The Libertines or Rancid light with that kind of punk-ish sound, verging on ska. I mean, that’s not a bad thing, but it’s also incredibly familiar feeling and catchy in a way that feels almost penned to play at an outdoor live festival show for gently moshing gen-zs.

And, look, I don’t really know or understand shoegaze music, but I think track five, “Collided,” with its kind of dreamy tempo shifts and whatnot is pretty much that. I’m not mad at it, but we’ve gone through less than half the album at this point and pretty much travelled through just as many tone shifts and musical genres. I’m all for variation, of course, but this is nutz! And, hey, here we go again in song six with some more floaty shoegaze stuff. Or… maybe not. Man, they are messing with me. It’s almost as if the DJ has the mixer half way between two songs, as the Brit rock and shoegaze genres kind of cross the streams. And then all of a sudden we’re back in a The Streets album on “Rebounder.” No, I’m not joking. Talking, but like way more talking in a not rhyming kind of way this time, with a soft-singing chorus. So odd. But still so catchy.

I’m not quite sure what happens in the last third of the record. Perhaps the bassist and the drummer got to put their songs on there. We don’t need the track “Interlude” and whatever this spoken-word poetry stuff is. We get you like Mike Skinner, but his stuff also gets tiring. Nobody wants or needs your “art.” Put it in a book. And then it just kind of grinds to a halt — as if the band had enough for an EP but needed to get to eleven tracks and just stuck in some filler and called it a day. Which is a shame, really, as the first two-thirds of the record is truly decent and memorable and really quite rockin’. I’ll forgive the nosedive because the ascent is so good, but I will always hate them for it. So I end with some talk-poetry of my own: Big Truck, good luck, get fucked (pronounced fooked). Just kidding, keep spinning, we’re winning. And that’s an endin’.