The Winchester Club - Negative Liberty (2011)

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The Winchester Club - Negative Liberty (2011)

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The Winchester Club's decade-plus career has been gathering exponential steam of late. After wasting several years in near inactivity and repeatedly botched, even misplaced, recordings, the London-based shoegazers finally completed their independently released debut album, Brittania Triumphant, in 2007, then saw it reissued to great acclaim by the Exile on Mainstream label amidst tours in support of A Whisper in the Noise and Neurosis, plus a Roadburn festival appearance: not too shabby. Now the group simply have to prove that this sudden buzz was no fluke, beginning with their sophomore effort, Negative Liberty, which emerged in summer 2011 and reportedly drew inspiration from the cult BB2 documentary series The Trap, which, needless to say, may exclude listeners who have yet to watch the show from some of the conversation. Time will tell, but for the moment, one can judge Negative Liberty well enough on its musical merits,. Its amusing title notwithstanding, opening track "Fuck You Buddy" (named after the documentary series' first episode) is a most serious, carefully considered, slow-building, drawn-out (13 minutes) meditation referencing everyone from Dutch electro-trance experts 35007 to post-rock astronauts Godspeed You Black Emperor!. Oh yeah, and it's wordless to boot! In fact, all of Negative Liberty's tunes are instrumental propositions, but not all have enough going on to stave off mild boredom, namely during the interminable introduction to "RD Laing (Little Chemical Straightjackets)" and the particularly uniform "The Lonely Robot," unless you consider its second half descent into weepy acoustic guitars exciting stuff (that lonely Pixar robot, Wall-e, may). But ultimately, the subtle ways in which the Winchester Club evolve their compositions may simply appeal to a more sedentary, headphones on, immersive, and undistracted listening experience. In other words, a rather selective audience, given the scarcity of folks with time to do that in this day and age.