I won’t lie. Upon hearing the very beginning of the very first track, 'Staggers Anthem', I heard the obscene amount of influence from U2 and Snow Patrol combined in equal measure and I thought I knew immediately the exact direction that this record was going to go in. To be honest, the clues were already in the album title: Stadium. 'Staggers Anthem' is the idea festival closer. Energetic and melancholic in equal measure with a real emotion and atmosphere behind it that brings the bleary-eyed memories of warm summer sunsets surrounded by 100,000 other revellers. 'The Odyssey' doesn’t do much to dispel that original feeling either, despite taking a slightly slower, more choral singalong chorus-style approach to proceedings. It’s a very pretty way of spending around four minutes of your life.
Suddenly, I miss festival season.
Just when you find yourself settling into a groove, 'Praise Be' screeches into your ears, taking you right back to a garage band jam session. Sounding rough and abrasive, unpolished and frenetic in places, it does take a subtle lift from U2's 'Vertigo' but never enough to draw further comparison to the stadium rock behemoths. It does have one of those random “quiet bits” in the final third to build towards the finale, which seems like a lazy and overused way to segue between parts of a single song, but other than that it’s a fun, spiky little number. Then we get to 'Feel it Ticking' which, at this point, is beginning to sound a little too familiar. All of a sudden, it seems like the penny’s dropped. All the songs sound different enough on their own merits, but they blend too easily into the last meaning the whole record suddenly falls into danger of just being one of those background albums you play when friends are around, rather than to actually listen to.
However, that feeling doesn’t last too long as 'I am the Miracle' kicks in to shake everything up, sounding far more like Jet meets the Arctic Monkeys, and at that moment, all bets were off. Stabby and impatient, it sometimes tickles at the coattails of punk in places, which is quite something considering the comparatively safe music they’d been playing up to now. However, what would be needed right now to follow up is a sudden change of direction in the direction of a slow one. They’ve done stabby, punchy and singalong, but now they need to slow right down and The Plea do just that, as the record meanders wistfully through the smooth, uplifting, but never melodramatic 'Wind chime'. Until that moment exactly 4 minutes and eleven seconds in when Doherty screams a huge “YEEAAAHHH!”, not for the first time during this record either, and Bono immediately sues for copyright infringement. At nearly 7 minutes in length though, 'Wind chime' is an epic and the band should be credited for maintaining my interest throughout. Slow ballad-esque tracks like this can sometimes just get dull after a while, but this one has enough intrigue to carry it through its length.
'Oh Ay Yay', apart from having a silly name, doesn’t really sound like anything we haven’t heard during this album before. It’s a bit “just there”, occupying the filler role. It’s not bad, it just exists and goes away, and that’s about it, and then 'Send it Out' does almost exactly the same, and we’re back at the stage where the record threatens to just fizzle out. With three tracks remaining, it needs to get back up to speed.
'Glass Waltz' makes you think it’s going to be a slow, steady crawl, but it just about manages to pull the record back into the right direction by picking up the pace in a huge way and throwing the listener around in a true attempt to wake them up. It works. As Doherty shouts “We’re all waltzing on a glass floor ceiling” until his voice starts to get hoarse, you really begin in the conviction behind him. Then The Plea get immediate bonus points for having a Glockenspiel playing during 'Out Like a Light'. Crunching, snarling guitars mix surprisingly well with the steady bass and carefully-delivered vocals to create a great all-round track which leads nicely into the advertised closing track, 'Too Young to Die', which starts off quietly with a high-pitched howl, some steady, subtle chord work, and an echoed vocal line. Eventually the bass drum and a little piano kicks in, and the slow build continues. The whole thing is very predictable, much unlike the clear subject matter (that of drug usage), but it’s all delivered convincingly enough to round the album off. Whether or not it makes it onto the retail versions of the album, there’s an excellent semi-acoustic hidden track almost immediately after “Too Young To Die” that doesn’t really fit with the rest of the album, being tinged with a country edge.
In closing, there’s a lot to like about this album. It has its clear influences and rarely strays too far away from them. Occasionally it flows through the motions a little and phones a few tracks in, but the good outweighs the bad here by some margin. It’s a long way from perfect, and almost as far away from excellent, but it’s plenty good enough to enjoy. Bono and co won’t be looking over their shoulders any time soon though.
The Plea release 'The Dreamers Stadium' on February 25th. The Plea are in the UK this week, playing shows in several cities including London, Leeds and Manchester.
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Suddenly, I miss festival season.
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