Rewind to November 2010 and I was giving this band's single 'Footsteps' an 8/10. It was a catchy tune in the jangly indie vein, and I was willing to let the Housemartins similarities pass because it was, on its own merits, a decent slice of pop.
Eight months on and I'm presented with their full-length debut, and I'm frustrated. Not because the album doesn't fulfil the single's promise, but precisely because it does. It's easy enough to determine where The Brights are coming from. Almost immediately, and without looking at the press release or my previous review, I found myself thinking of The Beautiful South, The Style Council, and like these forebears, they write neat, crisp, shiny attempts at perfect pop. The album's full of them from start to finish. The trouble is, they sound like The Beautiful South and The Style Council. Singer David Burgess has an irritating, Paul Heaton-esque whiney voice and it does grate rather.
Then there's the fact that the songs are all so very similar: when I say the album's full of neat, crisp, shiny attempts at perfect pop, it could be the same three played on a loop. There are at least three songs that have an intro nabbed straight from 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'. Equally, the upbeat jangliness gets to be most wearisome very quickly, and the delivery is often at odds with the less joyful lyrics, giving the impression of a stunted emotional vocabulary. It's rather like the fixed grin of someone working in a job they hate dealing with the public, maintaining the exterior while crying inside.
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'Hands Across the Ocean' kicks off with abundant energy, but somehow fails to capitalise, winding up just so much bluster and a weak rip-off of 'Barbarism Begins at Home'. Having sashayed through ten tracks, 'Memories of You (Reprise)' isn't so much a reprise as an instrumental version, and cobbled on at the end, it feels entirely superfluous. What's wrong with having a 10-track album that ends with a proper song rather than a repeat of track 9?
As I said, 'A Trivial Pursuit' is frustrating. It's got some nice tunes. It's well produced. But it just doesn't deliver the essential last slices of the cake to make it a winner.
The Brights Online
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