Complicating Things

Simple, straightforward and totally committed, The Spinning Rooms’ second album is a carefully measured assault against apathy, writes PATRICK EMERY.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] In a world characterised increasingly by complication and confusion, simplicity has become the holy grail of personal philosophy. That’s presumably the reason for the plethora of simplistic guides to personal happiness and financial success:, How to Find Serenity in Five Easy Steps, The Three Paths to Contentment, The Four Most Obvious Ways to Avoid Fucking Up Your Life.

There is, however, a more obvious creed for personal wellbeing: punk rock. If The Spinning Rooms’ debut album was a shot across the bows of rock ’n’ roll indifference, the band’s follow-up record, Complicating Things, is a carefully measured assault against apathy.

It starts in earnest with ‘It Can’t Not’: a rumbling beat, a distant saxophone, a measured vocal, a sense of expectation. Like the proverbial frog boiling in water, the moment builds quietly and you’re unable to escape; you get the feeling the song could have stretched out another five minutes and you’d be trapped forever.

If the preceding track titillates, ‘Julia’ is all over you like a rash, its tongue down your throat before you’ve had a chance to exchange pleasantries. An inebriated slur of punk rock passion, this is Funhouse-era Stooges meets Let It Bleed Rolling Stones, reinvented by Bird Blobs in a moment of deranged excitement.

“The simplicity is almost dangerous; you could find yourself hooked into a cause before you’ve had time to think.”

The simple repetition of ‘Single Life’ is compelling: The Black Angels playing The Stooges’ ‘We Will Fall’ in a Preston garage to a crowd of layabout sharehouse tenants. The simplicity is almost dangerous; like those shitty pop-psychology books, you could find yourself hooked into a secular cause before you’ve had time to think.

‘Kids in the Car’ is the amphetamine-spiked drag-car sprint into oblivion. Just when it looks like the free-wheeling journey is going to end in shards of punk noise, a jazz-funk riff enters the fray and it’s the best event 1973 never offered. ‘Blues for Jas H Duke’ is sparse and mesmerising; a collage of jungle beats, simple saxophone spikes and a spray of screeching guitar. This is where jazz, blues and punk meet, and it’s an amazing thing to behold.

‘The Victim’ drops down a notch and stumbles through the darkness of the night. There’s a vague hint of Lee Hazlewood’s ‘Some Velvet Morning’; in the hands of The Spinning Rooms, even the softest fabric has an abrasive edge. The backing vocals blend into wailing guitar: at its peak, it’s a horror movie soundtrack that’ll send you over the edge. Noise is followed by comparative silence; a few tinkles on the piano, a strum of the guitar and it’s over.

“It’s less a song than an extended plea for redemption.”

‘I’ve Found a Place I Can Sleep (Parts 1 & 2)’ is the cathartic finale. Like a drunk awaking from a three-day bender, the song emerges slowly from a haze of regret and confusion. It’s less a song than an extended plea for redemption and salvation: the first chapter of the song breaks at around the four-minute mark into a cacophonic frenzy; the moment subsides, and it’s replaced by a basic Brian Jonestown-style psych-blues melody.

The sonic atmosphere clears and it’s all lilting harmonies and sparkling beauty; it’s a new day, and the events of yore can be forgotten. The drums rattle and roll, the sax drones in the background like a distant cerebral trauma that just won’t go away. There’s a brief return to chaotic frenzy, and it’s quiet again.

Simplicity is a virtue. And the Spinning Rooms are one of the most virtuous bands doing the rounds.

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‘Complicating Things’ is out now through Every Night is a Saturday Night.