I like a bit of post punk angularity in the morning. It smells like that mix of insolence and indolence that you get when you set a quirky indie band on fire. I am not entirely sure why I was smelling things like that today but it might well have something to do with Argonaut and their album “Interrupted”.
As London indie bands go, Argonaut must be near the top when it comes to left field laconicism. Their lyrics have that, no doubt deliberate, anti-poetic quality that makes all that they do seem like a pastiche of the work of the clean living literature appreciation society in any local further education college that you might care to mention yet this is actually simple prestidigitation to hide the expression of some rather bleak, if distinctly relevant to today, sentiments. Musically, the story is pretty much the same with the apparent simplicity combined with the wanton use of repetition obscuring the fact that there is an effective musical arrangement present, ready, and waiting to reinforce the Argonaut message on its way to your ears. It’s like chips and curry sauce – two things that were meant to find each other and become much more than when they were apart.
No one will accuse “Interrupted” of being an album for mainstream ears but it is equally hard to deny the appeal of Argonaut’s almost manically offbeat approach to making music. I’ll therefore call this album a worthy one.
The album is also available on limited edition vinyl from Criminal Records.