The ATO Records website humourously refers to Brigitte Calls Me Baby frontman Wes Leavins as simply “Leavins” – inadvertently highlighting a similarity to one of his vocal inspirations, monomymy’s Morrissey. But there’s a difference between sounding something like a hero and imitating them, something that Irreversible avoids.
The Chicago-based band’s newest release doesn’t hang out in an imitation Manchester, deliver graduate-studies treatises on celibate love, or otherwise curdle the senses in a manner that caused Henry Rollins to spit while listing a Top 10 albums chart on MTV: “Vauxhall & I: whatever that means”. Likening Brigitte to The Smiths or post-Smiths Morrissey would inevitably lead someone to accuse the band of being a pale imitation. The rudimentary bass/guitar doubling of “Slumber Party”’s melody sounds like The Kingsmen in comparison to Johnny Marr’s effortless fusion of C86-gen and West African players. At least one of his barrage of witticisms could wrest a smirk from the most hardened of the anti-Moz brigade, whereas Leavins and band treat lyrics mostly as function over fashion.
Caving to the temptation of this comparison also de-obviates how very much BCMB like the cut of The Killers’ jib. This is a group that wears suits and sportcoats, not natty pullovers and cardigans. If the private school emblem is on the breast pocket: all the better. Its Swiss Army Knife or credit card is an anthemic chorus and verses are just conveyors. The opener, “There Always”, begins with that outdoor-amphitheatre butterflies-in-the-stomach, straight-out-of-a-U2-concert-film ascendancy. By the end of the first track, Leavins glistens “Always! Always! Always!” and every gentle vibrato is a sign to get on your feet. The aforementioned “Slumber Party” then cuts through the delay effects and becomes something rabid, obeying the classic methodology of the second song raising the temperature a notch. Its punk/shuffle gait draws The Walkmen’s “The Rat” to mind, but has Leavins’ voice as a built-in cooling mechanism.
Irreversible does midtempo but it doesn’t do mid-album. There’s a link to classic Def Leppard about it, where each song could be a single and video. The slow burn of “The Pit” is less of a break than another showcase, no more a stepladder for the Strokes-ish “Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction” nor the Talk Talk-imbued “These Acts Of Which We’re Designed” than they are for it. (“Of which”: There’s some Morrissey for you.)
The production by Yves and Lawrence Rothman wisely attunes to the 80s influences and sonic similarities, but it doesn’t force the band to live there. The recording exudes modernity with retro touches – not the other way around. Artists who try to authenticate their sound by replicating old techniques often do so at the expense of their songs or with little understanding that the original artists were trying like hell to not sound amateurish. BCMB and the Rothmans take the hip-rocking “I Can Take The Sun Out Of The Sky” and hear as much Harry Styles as George Michael and excise any tendency toward camp.
Of course, how long BCMB can live here remains to be seen. It might not be a pale imitation of The Smiths but the anthems do mask a sense that deep-cuts will one day be needed. Leavins’ voice is an instantly identifiable instrument that could present avenues to get really weird in the future. Or else it could just end up being used in tribute.
