Calories - Basic Nature

Birmingham, being the second largest city in England, is unfortunately very far from being the second largest exporter of quality bands. Thankfully Calories are here to mend the musical hangover we have from some of the city’s recent exports like The Twang. Of course Calories are not new; their first offering Adventuring was a blistering straight up indie rock record with pop sensibilities thrown in. It was a solid enough record, what it was missing though was variance; it was a little bit samey. Basic Nature sees Calories adjust this, and produce an album with bags of variety.

There is definitely a lot of variance here, it is obvious the influences on this record are vast, and it pays off, to produce an album that reveals more to you on each listen. Said to be recorded “at various times in curious locations”, you get the idea that this album has been the work of lots of different influences.

Album opener Basic Nature 1 could easily fit on a No Age record, a bolstering thirty second instrumental. Leading straight onto You Can Be Honest which see Calories revisit the straight forward rock sound of debut Adventuring. Basic Nature 2 and New Cross are akin to the opener, again they are noisy experimental short tracks of bliss.

Lead single FFWD, probably the most obvious choice for a single, really summarizes most of this album. FFWD has the lo-fi indie rock sound synonymous to this album, also big hooks and a pretty catchy chorus. Basic Nature also sees Calories extend beyond the three minute rock track. There is a seven minute track packed in here, yes that is right a seven minute Calories track! The Brink takes Calories’ well used ideas of lo-fi riffs and catchy hooks and extends them out over seven minutes, resulting in a very Calories’ sounding track minus some of the urgency of their shorter tracks.

2010 really has not been the best year for abundance of great albums, thankfully ‘Basic Nature’ is one of these great albums. So, simply, ahem, go buy it...

Basic Nature is released on the 13th of September.

For more information, check out www.myspace.com/caloriesband

RT