The Centimes – ‘Wooden Shirts’

The Centimes debut album is a personable introduction to the band, the individual characters involved – Amy, Adam and Jasmine - and the dynamic they share being demonstrated throughout the 10 songs with an easy manner. The record lets you in, shows you around and offers to make tea too. But don’t be fooled, it's no sit-down.

‘Stormy Tuesday’ best demonstrates their dynamic with an extended introduction during which tremulous becomes volatile. It’s a slow-building tease of drums, bass and 12-string guitar that finally pays off with a stomping pop song about suburban drear that doesn’t buckle under it’s own dour subject matter but bolts it to some Byrds-ian three-part harmonies and lets the bad feeling evaporate.

 

Songs of ordinary madness pepper the album – the disaffected ‘Local Pool’ and the title track are both infectious slabs of power pop, but elsewhere the band show a cool affinity with disco on ‘Locked Out’, the virtue of restraint on the sober ‘Spider’ and forlorn balladry with ‘I’m Fine’. The band are unfussy in their set-up and economical with production embellishments which lets both their intuition as players and the quality of their song-writing stand out in bold.

 

It’s hard not to love a record this simple and direct in approach – the listener is practically in the room with the band, much in the same way as the Pixies ‘Surfer Rosa’ (the comparison ends there). Be engulfed by the Centimes glow; their record will coax you out of yourself, persuade you to dance in a silly manner and leave you wondering if the people involved are as cool in real life.

'Wooden Shirts' is released on 12th October 2014 through Bandcamp
https://thecentimes.bandcamp.com

Rich