The British Expeditionary Force
Chapter One: A Long Way From Home
Rating: 4.0
Label: Erased Tapes
Quite personally, the indie-electronica genre had run its course with me almost immediately. Although there were true gems amongst the crowd (Le Tigre’ s S/T, The Postal Service’s Give Up, Radiohead’s Kid A just to name a few), the bulk of this genre’s music felt forced and without depth or substance, leaving me to abandon it as a whole with no looking back. Nas once said hip-hop was dead; I once said alternative indie-electronica had perished. That is, until I was shown the light.
The British Expeditionary Force’s Chapter One: A Long Way From Home is an ambient odyssey that takes its listeners through ups and downs within ourselves that we’ve never imagined. Fueled with swelling reverb, chimes, glinting pianos and a real ear for indie-pop flair, Aid Burrows and Justin Locksley have pooled their resources into a real thing of beauty and panache. A Long Way from Home is a six-track composition that works together as a whole. From beginning to end, the music acts as a solid piece, ranging from the call-to-attention stirring immediacy of “Back of the Hand” to the sudden and brash title track.
As I listened, I was reminded of the Blink-182 offshoot Angels & Airwaves and how if they had a heart and soul, this is probably how they would sound. It sounds like British Expeditionary Force has ripped out some pages from their contemporaries’ playbooks, only they’ve done it with the utmost care and respect. Burrows’ synthetic reverb on the mysterious, piano-led “Throwing Little Stones” echoes that of Thom Yorke on “Kid A,” this time to a wholly different effect, evoking a loneliness that drives this eerie ballad home. “Lashing Out,” the album’s most pop-oriented tune, is short, sweet and simple. Beautifully, it is there and gone in all of two and a half minutes before diving head first into Home’s delicate finale, but not before leaving that charming Peter Bjorn and John taste in your mouth.
The tracks “Swallowed by Anger” and a Rival Consoles mix of “A Long Way from Home” follow up the initial 26-minute album as the only bonus material included. The first is an incredibly simplistic meanderer that adds nothing special to the album. Retaining the quality of a decent home demo and containing nothing but a single guitar and some under-mastered strings, this is by far the album’s most underwhelming track. Before you actually get a chance to really appreciate what it is, the violins of the next song come up and you’re left wanting way more. Luckily, the remix of the title track sounds like an amped up “This Place is A Prison” from The Postal Service. It’s obvious that Burrows and Locksley haven’t quite honed their craft to its full potential, but this is a damn fine precursor to the next chapter of their story.
by Cameron Mason
