Architecture In Helsinki
Places Like This

Architecture In Helsinki have moved from bashful to belligerent in the space of three albums, though I’m not entirely sure what the step in between was – boldness, perhaps? Certainly, In Case We Die threw many listeners a technicolour curveball that wasn’t to be guessed at from the band’s limited, endearingly amateurish beginnings. All credit to them for moving on, at least – tissue-thin indie pop has never been a musical foundation built to last, no matter how much you pretty it up with handclaps and trumpets.

And yet, the fat beats and dancefloor readiness of Places Like This did not come from nowhere: the tendency was there for all to hear from the very start, on 2002’s Like A Call 10”. One song – ‘Feather in a Baseball Cap’ – has a place on both recordings, though the gap between the versions is telling. Originally a brief slice of tinny electro-pop, it now slinks along, every wet synth and echo-laden guitar a general invitation to low-slung dance moves brimming with sleazy intent. Cameron Bird no longer sings in a breathy, girlish whisper; his vocals have become low and growling, at times grotesque, and he delivers the words, “And clever isn’t where it’s at/’Cause dumb is back” with clear relish. Five years ago his tone was the flattest of irony, and maybe it’s this difference that shows up the problem which lies at the core of Places Like This – I’d say ‘at the heart’, but I’m not convinced that this record has one.

Sure, the rhythm programming squirts and rises across the record like fluorescent puff-paint – remember that stuff? You used to decorate stone-wash denim with it in the 80s, and its no coincidence that the determined ugliness of this music recalls that most tasteless of decades – and ‘Heart It Races’ is an undeniably awesome pop tune, the album’s clear standout, but the fun is wearying. By the time the record’s final tracks roll around – ‘Lazy’ dolloped with cheesy white reggae guitar and ‘Same Old Innocence’ pounding along same old, same old – well, I’m not sure that I don’t hate this album by then. Bird’s cartoon vocals matched to arrangements intrusive and unwelcome as someone pilling off their face on the last bus home at three am – this album sounds like what it is: the sound of a band who’ve been living out of suitcases for at least two years too long, stumbling to bed as dawn breaks over the last revellers; overbearing, overconfident and overtired.

by Emmy Hennings