dubstep

The newly launched Nike 1World project has been created in conjunction with select cool kids in the “sports, music, art and design fields”, presumably hand-picked for their innate panache on a global scale. The scope of 1World has been defined as 18 original shoes, which will be launched month by month via Nike's awesome AF-1 website.

Today the first three have now been revealed – from the rainbow excess of Busy P to the refelective digital camo of Gore-Texer (Nitro Microphone Underground) and finally Rasheed’s hightop with ‘Max Air’, you couldn’t find three more different AF-1s if you tried. Definitely a bright start to this project...
Just go to http://www.nikeairforce1.com and hit the 1World button - all will be revealed in due course!

So a review of the new Forward, Russia! album from a self proclaimed obsessive? Not exactly going to be scaling the dizzying heights of impartiality? I will try to do my best, but maybe you might want to shave of .5 of a point from the final score, and I think if you read through, this isn't going to be the "OMG, this album is the roxxor!" that you may assume it to be.

The album opens with a quick build and a burst "This is a problem. There is no solution." If you are familiar with Tom's "singing" then you know the fevered urgency with which he screams the lyrics home. Guitar hooks a plenty, an amazing baseline, and a breakdown just after a minute, this truly is the excellent start to the album that Forward Russia needed to assure everyone that the next 50 minutes will be a glorious one.

Track one fades into track two, We Are Grey Matter, and the jolt of the intro track pulls back to let you gasp for breath in anticipation of what is going to happen with the rest of the album. The first chorus assaults you with "let me make this fucking clear!" in the most screechy voice Tom has achieved. It is a little unnerving to hear, even from him, but he just about pulls it off. The hooks are coming thick and fast, with the sound that we have come to know from the first album, Give me a Wall. And indeed, the bridge of track two is reminiscent of Seventeen from that record.

Track three, A Prospector Can Dream closes the opening segment of the album. Its opening time signature comes a little out of left field for anyone not expecting it, but it is well within FR's remit. The lyrics of this track are also a bit hit and miss, but the lynchpin of "we could be something in a new location" is dripping in second meanings and wild interpretation. The track builds to its close with a section that is sure to become a live favourite. I hope FR are bold enough to release this as the next single, because even though it is a bit strange, it really does sum up what this bands sound is, especially when compared to the recent single, Breaking Standing.

Spring is a Condition brings the album into its second phase, and is also the first song on this record to truly play with the idea of fluctuating time signatures, in the vain of Twelve from Give me a Wall. It just about works; by no-means is it a bad song, it just can't deal with the responsibility of having to follow A Prospector... but again, the melodic bridge is very good, and the chorus ain't bad either.

Track five is unfortunately album filler and doesn't showcase anything other than a love for 3/4 time, something which this album features heavily.

Some Buildings... starts slow in a time signature that I just couldn't pin down (not an expert on these things), and found to be deeply irritating, but soon settles into something alot more managable. At almost 7 minutes, and being the very middle track, it has a tough job, but it does extremely well. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Jesus Christ and Lazarus" is an excellent chorus with a sublime hook. This is the kind of sound that I think FR will want to develop further; not being afraid of long songs with repeating lyrics. However, the liberal use of unorthodox time signatures may have caused the casual listener to become nauseous by now. The thing with 4/4 timing is that because it is so widely used, people who perhaps listen to a more commercial brand of music, hear a song that is 7/4 for example, and it just sounds wrong to them. It sounds broken or missing bits.

Some Buildings... has the unenviable task of flowing into the current single, Breaking Standing. I don't know if it's because I've listened to it a lot away from this album, but Breaking Standing seems like such a lame song within the confines of these other tracks. It does not represent the album as a whole, it relies exclusively on 4/4 time, is very clean and Tom could probably sing this in his sleep. But I guess they wanted some radio airplay. The song mirrors Eighteen from the previous album, but would fit there a lot more than it fits here.
Gravity and Heat is a tour de force, which features a heavy muse-esque section that works very well. Another long track, this song signifies the closing stages of the album. This song plays with the idea of doing a slow ballad, but decides to fuck that idea pretty swiftly, probably catching the listener unawares. This song moves very fluidly between a range of sounds and time signatures, and is definitely the latter half's high point.

Two relatively short tracks follow, which are surprisingly unremarkable: The ballad which was denied previously, and the urgent A Shadow... which is heavy, but ends up sounding more than a little like Gravity and Heat, from no less than 4 minutes ago. They lead into Spanish Triangles, the band's self proclaimed magnum-opus. Just shy of nine minutes, it never really builds to the heights that you would hope it to considering the rest of the album. Having listened to previous tracks which dart and dive through various melodies and time signatures, Spanish Triangles stays almost disappointingly similar throughout. That isn't to say it isn't a fantastic journey, it is still one of the album highlights, has a great melody and I'm sure live it will be a spectacular closing, especially if the audience participate to the level I'm sure the band is hoping.

All in all then, an excellent album, an excellent follow up, and proof that this is a band that know what they are doing with music. They are a true Indie band, doing things their own way, making the music they want to listen to. Who cares if the album doesn't break the top 20? They love what they are doing, and this definitely comes across in an album that was clearly slaved over until it was just so.

I was not disappointed.

8.5/10

From the mouth of Fenton Bailey. Find his blog at http://fentonbailey.blogspot.com