Becoming a Villagers fan

Album: Becoming A Jackal
Artist: Villagers http://www.wearevillagers.com/ Facebook
Label: Domino
Release date: May 24, 2010
Peak chart positions: (IRE) 1, (UK) 66, (UK – Indie) 1


After listening to a lot of music that people have enthusiastically assured me is brilliant, I decided to go completely out on a limb and pick a band I’d never even heard of, just to see what I would find. An Irish indie band is a good place to start – indie is very underrated at the best of times; put it on the other side of the world and you’re almost guaranteed that Australia will know nothing about it. Or maybe I just live in a hole. But anyhow, when iTunes chose their free single of the week from Villagers’ debut album Becoming A Jackal I decided to plunge headfirst into the unknown and review the album no matter what. I admit that I was half-hoping for a completely awful record that I could rip to shreds for a bit of light entertainment, but unfortunately for that idea my attempts in that respect have again been thwarted. Stand by for another awesome addition to your music collection.

It’s difficult to find much information on Villagers, they’re just so brand spanking new. It also doesn’t help that my Google search terms were mistakenly ‘The Villagers”. They’re not. They’re just Villagers. But moving on. The band is currently a 5-piece, fronted by Conor J. O’Brien (just in case you weren’t sure of his nationality…), who is the composer, lyricist, singer and the one with the worst haircut. Maybe that’s part of the look. But it certainly isn’t affecting their music - Becoming A Jackal has been shortlisted for the Mercury Prize and Ireland’s Choice Music Prize shooting to number 1 in their home country and the UK indie charts and the band has drawn up quite a healthy list of tour dates on which ‘sold out’ is not an uncommon occurrence.

Becoming A Jackal is not an instantly likable album however. From the start, harmonies that toe the line of dissonance refuse to let the listener settle into any sort of comfortable expectancy. The album opens with the unsettling arpeggiated piano part and eerily calm vocals of “I Saw The Dead” - creepy reference to seeing the dead aside, it was the repeated line “There’s something we’re missing darling” with its breath-snatching ending that left me totally on the wrong side of comfortable. But like people warming to a conversation, the awkward introductions are forgotten as the album gets into stride with the more genial guitar of the title track. Not that the lyrics get any more comforting – O’Brien has been noted for his eerie, disconcerting poetry and as catchy as the tunes are, you can’t quite shake the dark undercurrent that accompanies them. The sombre, angsty strings-filled “The Meaning Of The Ritual” is O’Brien’s most sophisticated lyric, with carefully phrased poetry that gently rhymes its way through paradoxes with a poetic, albeit dark, philosophy of love whose sincerity and directness is touching. By far the most profound moment of the album.

Don’t go thinking this is an album of moody angst though. The second half of the track listing decidedly picks up in pace with the sweetly uplifting melody, twinkling keyboard notes and bold drums of “That Day”. The album’s catchy single is followed shortly with the feel-good boppy bass of “Pact (I’ll be your fever)”, and the surprisingly jazzy “Set The Tigers Free” before slowing the pace with the shattered “Pieces” (which has O’Brien howling desperately like a wolf. Got to love the originality. Once you get over the…you know, weirdness) and wistfully cryptic “To Be Counted Among Men”.

The word of the album has to be versatility – Villagers seem to have a lot of influences and they use every trick they’ve ever learned. Or maybe they just accidentally copy a lot of people. But if they do, they copy from the right people – hints of Simon & Garfunkel, Achtung Baby, George Harrison, Coldplay, Phillip Glass minimalism, jazz, Irish folk and experimental instrumental and vocal techniques are just part of the list that can be heard in the rather impressive experimentation of a band that has been pigeonholed as ‘indie’. O’Brien’s voice sometimes leaves something to be desired, lacking in strength in some tracks and occasionally redefining ‘in tune’, but in the end it kind of adds to the offbeat nature of the music anyway.

Villagers’ music is strong lyrically, passionate musically and beautifully varied to the point of rendering boredom non-existent. I expect big things from these guys. 4/5 stars

Listen to: That Day, The Meaning Of The Ritual

Is is worth my $$$? – A perfectly balanced album of subdued indie notes and upbeat folk-pop tunes full of variety and refreshing originality that will slip just as easily into your weekend playlist as it will into your rainy-day-curled-up-with-a-book one. Lovers of Laura Marling, Cloud Control and Belle & Sebastian will need this in their collection.