We had a schoolfriend who never used to do any work for the first half term of the academic year. After that he’d start turning in a little, until finally he’d begin to put actual effort in, towards the last third of the year. “Wait till you see my report card,” he’d say if asked why, “it’ll read ‘A wonderful improvement, we’re very happy’, whereas yours will just say ‘Passable student’. We’ll have done the same quality of work, and you’ll have done more of it, but I’ll get the better write up. This is because a) all judgments are relative, and b) teachers don’t think too much about report cards, so keep things simple for them.
“Having listened to this two-tracker, we’re beginning to think Night Portraits are following the same strategy. When we saw them live it was a shocking mess, an atonal, slovenly, dropped blancmange of a gig, which ended early when the engineer got bored of coming onstage to tune the bass for them. Compared to that, this CD sounds fantastic – the band don’t sound as though they’ve just emerged from seven years in a sensory deprivation tank during which all recognition of their instruments and each other has been erased, for a start. But, if we can think about it for longer than first form teachers on report day, we have to ask, “Is it any good?” Well, it’s loosely promising, but has a way to trek yet.
What we really like about ‘Place I Love’ is the dispassionate, cold detachment in the playing, reminding us a smidgen of New Order. We like the way the drums are neither motorik nor Motown, but just keep things bubbling along. We like the way the guitar has just enough reverb to sound distant and unemotive, without teetering over into Goth posturing. We like the contrast between this and the vocals, a guttural howl cutting across it all. But what we don’t like is the song itself, which has a brief flash of character, but ends up a tiny puff of nothing much. It’s like a rock ‘n’ roll version of Smith’s Scampi Flavour Fries.
Also, although we like the placement of the voice, we’re not that keen on the voice itself, which is affected and doesn’t seem to know exactly what it’s shooting for, ending up a kind of cross between Brian Molko and a drunken lovelorn lumberjack being tossed out of a Newfoundland strip joint. There’s definitely a good punky voice here somewhere, but he’s not found it yet. The opening of ‘Fortune’s Fool’ doesn’t do them any favours, being pretty empty 90s rock with a facile little guitar portamento which for some reason drives us crazy with rage. It improves after a short while, but still sounds rather too much like ‘Place I Love’ for comfort. We’re briefly enticed by a silly noise that sounds like a rubber dog whining for a bone, but this disappears as swiftly as it arrived.
Unlike a lot of young bands Night Portraits have already got some control over their sound, and have some obvious ability glinting through, but it sounds as though they’ve not exactly found their niche yet. Then again, they’re a new act. This demo is analogous to the last week before Christmas holidays, so perhaps the quality will come later. Maybe we’ll be writing them a glowing report yet.