Engineers - Three Fact Fader
Within the opening few bars of the first track, and first single from the album, ‘Clean Coloured Wine’ my ears prick up. I’ve developed a well-honed instinct over the years and can generally spot something I’m going to really like within a few seconds and ‘Three Fact Finder’, the comeback album from Engineers, has just landed slap bang in the middle of my radar.
This should be no surprise to be honest, 2005’s eponymous debut was a spaced out, floaty affair and while they’ve honed their sound, with the aid of Ken Thomas (Sigur Ros, M83, Maps etc), they’ve not changed the template and it’s right up my street, so to speak.
The aforementioned ‘Clean Coloured Wine’ fades in with a lovely arpeggiated, fuzzy synth which is soon joined by a lolloping beat and a wash of bass and vocal. A few minutes in and the breakdown to the chorus is a moment of pure magic, like a wave of laidback noise breaking over the listener.
The album carries on in this deliciously slack way and although second track ‘Sometimes I Realise’ almost rises out of the torpor, it is soon apparent that even by the standards of the genre this album is so laidback it’s almost coma inducing. This is dance music for the seriously relaxed. It could be 1991 all over again.
Engineers specialise in walls of sound but there is no Sheildsian challenge to the listener here, just gentle warm waves of audio sensory overload, like sitting in a bath of warm molasses being softly massaged by mermaids.
If there’s a criticism it’s that by about halfway through the album you realise that there’s very little to tell the tracks apart by. Opening track aside, there is not much to grab hold of as the tunes submerge you and you get dragged in to a whirlpool is lace studying.
Still, that’s not much of a criticism really. This kind of music is designed to get lost in and tracks like ‘Hang Your Head’ and the title track give the listener plenty of opportunity to do that. When the album suddenly does drag you back up, as in the track ‘Emergency Room’ and later the closer ‘What Pushed Us Together’, it’s like a shot of adrenaline to the nervous system. Suddenly the eyes are open and you’re sitting up again!
This album is timed perfectly to slip in to the current Nu Wave Of Shoe Gazetm and it sits nicely alongside the likes of Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and Sad Day For Puppets amongst the current crop of those who’d rather look down than out, and I love it.
Top Tracks: 'Clean Coloured Wine', 'Emergency Room’.
Released July 06 on Kscope