The Loft – Badges

Tapete

Eighties indie heroes The Loft should have some sort of Guinness world record for the longest time passing before releasing their debut album. Formed by songwriter Pete Astor, guitarist Andy Strickland, bassist Bill Prince and drummer Dave Morgan, they burned brightly for a few years before imploding and scattering, forming other bands and leaving The Loft in their wake.

The Loft originally reconvened in 2006 for one seven-inch single, then scattered once again until last year’s Everything Changes Everything Stays The Same, which was released over forty years since the group originally formed. The fact that it is the original line-up and they are still talking is pretty impressive, and from the sound of Badges, their original musical relationships are undiminished.

You can’t help but be transported back to the halcyon days of the British independent guitar scene of the ’80s by opener “Happenstance”. Its rambunctious Fall-like rockabilly rhythm is a real ear-opener, the high chiming guitar and propulsive beat making it feel as if they were never away. Pete’s voice is cool and his questioning the march of time comes across as somebody who is taking stock of his current place in the world and by the sound of the songs being fairly happy with it.

The songs are very guitar driven with the interplay between rhythm and lead playful and full of promise, while the rhythm section knows exactly how to pile on the pressure or sit back as necessary. Although musically the sound is familiar, the years of experience and the fact that some of the songs have been co-written between Pete and Andy means that there is more variety here than we might realistically expect.

Pete’s half-spoken croon has a weathered quality and as they jump from the easy-going pæan to the joys of the open road that is “Campervan” to the Americana-influenced twang of the yearningly romantic “1955”, you sense that the group is in a good place. The guitar textures throughout are just right and you can’t help but hear a hint of the sort of interplay that Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd enjoyed in Television all those years ago.

The heavy almost-glam strut of “Beautiful Problem” is a charming love song, while the sharply pointillist guitars of “Junk Shop” offer a hypnotic counterpoint. All the while, the quietly insistent rhythm section offers exactly what is needed. You can’t escape where the guys are from with Badges containing a few reflective London-referencing tunes; but this is music for everybody, not just of a certain vintage.

The last forty years seem to have treated the members of the Loft well and with their musical history put through a prism of those years, the quality of the song-writing and playing shines through. Two albums in twelve months is good going and by the strength of this there will be more to come.

-Mr Olivetti-