Spector – Enjoy It While It Lasts (2012)

Approximately five years ago I went to see Suede at Alexandra Palace here in London. I was excited to see them as I hadn't seen them live before. Opening for Suede was Spector. I had never heard about this band before, but it seemed that they had quite a few fans in the audience. The two guys in front of us were singing all the lyrics along. I had to admit that they had really catchy songs and I really enjoyed their set. Some time after I saw their debut album Enjoy It While It Lasts with a cheap price at a record store so I decided to buy it. Stylistically, Spector is more similar to bands I used to listen to some years earlier, but I'm still happy I bought this album, because it has some excellent hit songs. This is the kind of music I would've been really excited to see live a few years earlier when I still felt like really getting wild on the dance floor.

I saw Spector live once more a couple of years later at Field Day, but to my disappointment, I felt like they had lost their spark. The songs weren't as catchy and they had adopted lots of electronic instruments and lost the upbeat rebellious attitude as a result. This happens to lots of bands after releasing a very strong debut album, so it wasn't a big surprise, but it's still always a bit disappointing. Nevertheless, the debut album remains a great indie rock album.

The album starts with quiet and sort of muffled electronic sounds in the song True Love (For Now). It feels like a proper intro for the album as it keeps growing and growing slowly not revealing all of the cards right in the beginning. Even though this song already grows to quite up-beat spheres, the album truly begins with the second song Chevy Thunder, which is my favourite track on the album and probably the biggest hit from the band. The fast-tempo song has amazing energy and the chorus in particular is made for singalongs and wild dancing. Grey Shirt & Tie slows things down a bit and introduces more electronic instruments. In comparison to the previous song, this seems quite lame. Twenty Nothing reminds me of some later The Strokes songs. It has that similar kind of collaboration between electric guitars and synth sounds. Friday Night, Don't Ever Let It End is another excellent fast-paced song with very catchy melodies. This is the kind of music that can make young indie kids give their all on the dance floor. Lay Low takes a lazier approach. I feel like the song should go somewhere, but it just stays where it is. Upset Boulevard brings the tempo back and there's similar type of energy to the couple of hit songs I've mentioned before, but the melody isn't quite as interesting. As you've seen in this text, I'm not that much of a fan of the slower songs on the album. Fortunately, there are some better slow songs on the album as well. No Adventure has a great growing structure and big guitar walls that I quite like. What You Wanted has slightly annoying electric beats and synth sequences that remind me of their later album. Celestine has a nice upbeat energy as well reminding me of bands like The Wombats or White Lies. Grim Reefer is a strange toned down ambient-style song that reminds me of some Moby tracks. The album ends with Never Fade Away, which is actually a pretty good song despite of being quite repetitive. The song has room to grow nicely.

I have to post the music video for Chevy Thunder here, because it's so clearly the best song on the album. The video is quite cinematic and features the band driving around California in a car (the band is actually from London). There's all sorts of goofing around in the video, but at least I don't see a proper storyline until the band crosses the border to Mexico, where they seem to get into trouble with local gang members until it's revealed that they're just shooting a video in the video.

The lead singer Fred MacPherson has sort of similar deep voice as Morrissey. At first it doesn't sound that cool, because there's no raspiness in the voice, but after a while you understand that actually this is very recognisable and thus very good for an indie band.

I don't necessarily have that many occasions where I would feel like listening to this album anymore. I wish I would've had this album when I was playing more DJ gigs, since this would be great for indie discos. Now I can just dance to myself while listening to this and I have to say that the fast-tempo tracks on this album are actually really good running songs.

Listen to the album on Spotify.