The Wombats – A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation (2007)

I remember being first introduced to this band by seeing the music video for Let's Dance to Joy Division on TV. The fast guitars, the melodies and witty and funny lyrics drew me in immediately. At the time I was listening to quite a lot of Joy Division and I remember having danced to Joy Division in various indie discos, so the lyrics hit me really hard. It is indeed very ironic to dance to Joy Division's songs that are among the most miserable tunes ever made by anyone. The Wombats on the other hand, were something completely different. Their songs are happy and up tempo and actually perfect for dancing. An indie disco hosted at a no-longer existing bar in Helsinki, Belly, used this song in their indie discos and they would always play Love Will Tear us Apart back to back with Let's Dance to Joy Division. I bought the album quite quickly after becoming aware of the band.



This Liverpool band uses similar types of sounds as hundreds of other bands did at the time, so in a way this music is not that original, but then again, The Wombats do a really good job on this album, so who cares. It's a very strong debut album. Unfortunately the following album fell into the same trap as many other bands these days. They started playing around with electronic sounds and when we're talking about a guitar indie band, that usually isn't a sensible move. In my opinion, this band stayed a one album wonder.

I did only manage to see the band live after the second album. This was at Nostrum, a small club in Helsinki. I thought the gig was quite fantastic despite the new songs that weren't as good. They still of course played lots of old stuff as well.

The album starts with a great a cappella song Tales of Girls, Boys and Marsupials. It sets the happy mood quite perfectly and when this song turns to Kill the Director and you hear those first guitar riffs, you can expect a great album. Backfire At the Disco is one of the album's amazing hit songs. It uses back beat rhythms known from ska music, but the sounds are guaranteed guitar indie and post punk revival.

The songs are quite similar, so maybe this band was destined to release only one good album. It's maybe even too much of the same to be listening in one go, but as I'm now listening to this, I'm not really bored. I guess it's just because I haven't listened to this album in a while now. This album isn't really something I would listen to at home all the time. This works best in parties and on the dance floor. Playing Let's Dance to Joy Division as a DJ at our university's indie discos definitely brought people to the dance floor. you might almost say that this is a kind of album that I was happy to own as equipment for DJ gigs. But I'm still happy to return to some of these songs even now, so I'm quite happy that I have albums like this.

Listen to the album on Spotify.