It takes a special talent to make magic out of the kitchen sink, to tell the story of the real world with an intimate touch that doesn’t sound patronising. John McLure of Reverend and the Makers made his name with this kind of writing and the new album sees the band return with their most concise and perfect work yet. If Shane Meadows made great contemporary pop records, mashing the rush of indie with the hedonistic pulse of electronics and dance, then this what they would sound like.
The album title is ‘@Reverend_Makers’ because, as McLure explains, ‘the songs the little situations I see living in Sheffield in 2012. Nothing seems to sum up the present and the times we live in more than the @ symbol.’
McLure is one of the most engaging modern musicians. Sheffield bred, he is six foot plus of pure high IQ attitude and passion and a key player in the city’s recent musical revival. Breaking through in 2007 with the top ten hit ‘Heavyweight Champion of the World’ from their first album ‘The State of Things’ and consolidating it with the second 2009 studio album, ‘A French Kiss in the Chaos’ his band’s mix of indie guitars and electronics updated the form adding heartfelt vocals and a social consciousness rare in modern music.
After a three year hiatus, ‘@Reverend_Makers’ takes this a stage further with every song sounding like a 21st century pop classic, marrying indie melodies with the sparse electronics that dominate his home city – it’s the sound of bedsits cranking their music, soundclashing across the city night.
The resulting album is the sound of someone who has lived the dream, had the success, the hit albums, traveled the world, played the stadiums but is still fascinated by his own roots. The magnetic draw of the north and its powerfully unique musical cities like Sheffield with their experimental pop heritage tempered by a blunt social realism is at the heart of some of the best British pop.
The new album sees a return to the social conscious that marked out his initial forays into music. This is small ‘p’ politics, the politics of the everyday, 21st century kitchen sink with the internet and social networking as well as beer and fags and fights.
Reverend And The Makers are back to reclaim their crown. Never has real life sounded so good. The tumbledown of cheap drugs, gritty realism, thrilling escapism, sex, and fish and chip suppers, hedonistic living, all night dance music in dank semi legal cellars, and the comedown – all soundtracked by great guitar music.