The Basics
Stand Out/Fit in
13 Track, LP (2007, Music Biz)
Related: The Basics.
The Basics’ professed ambition to look and sound like The Beatles and The Stones could easily be taken as playful and inoffensive, were there was not such an obnoxious air to its execution. From the Hard Day’s Night-era opener, ‘Rattle My Chain’, to the Pete Townshend-infatuated ‘That Girl’, Stand Out/Fit In sounds more like an act of historical escapism than a tribute to our pop heroes of yore. And The Basics retrospection doesn’t stop at the 60s – ‘Looking Over my Shoulder’ comes very close to late-70s two-tone ska (minus the horns) and ‘Memory Lane’ sits somewhere between AM rock and an accompaniment to the opening credits of a ‘80s family sit-com.
But for all its faithful production qualities, three-part harmonies and lyrical literalism, Stand Out/Fit In falls short of even its most modest objective: to sound intentionally anachronistic. It is an album seemingly motivated less by an interest in what was happening 40 years ago than a disinterest in what is happening today, and while a more forgiving ear might call Stand Out/Fit In “eclectic”, that would imply The Basics have fashioned something new from old wares. They have not.
by Pat McGrath
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