Race Horses, Furniture review

Below is a review of Race Horses' thoroughly ace new record Furniture as it appeared in the Daily Post last Friday (Aug 31). The album is out on September 10. Buy it.

As is the precedent with Aberystwyth’s Race Horses it has become custom to expect sprawling masses of genre and style.
Although highly accomplished, 2010’s Goodbye Falkenburg was a bit of a gallimaufry. A mash of “everything [they] had listened to up to that point, all combined musically.”
The intervening years have evidently been spent grinding their pop edge until razor-sharp. Frontman Meilyr Jones has the Cocker-esque skill of injecting the everyday and the kitchen sink drama with glitz and glamour.
Pulp, in fact, are the most obvious of benchmarks. That is a Pulp flush with Sparks and glossy 80s pop balladry, making nods at Queen (see Nobody's Son), Spandau Ballet and Ultravox without the influences being contrived or too knowing.
Although the record stumbles early with the meandering What Am I To Do, elsewhere it is consistently well constructed and well realised. A trio of Furniture, Mates and Sisters is chrome-bright modern pop backed by ineffable art school pomp – a heady mix of audacity and depth.
True to the pop blueprint, the record closes with the ballad Old and New. It is a well-used formula and its results are often hackneyed. But, it is a formula for a reason and when pulled off so impeccably it is very difficult to argue with. Solid gold pop, no less.

Race Horses, Daily Post August 17

Below appeared in the Daily Post on August 17. Race Horses' album, Furniture, is released on September 10. It is Solid Gold Pop. They also play Festival Number Six in Portmeirion in September.

THE RACE Horses of today are different proposition to the one that released Goodbye Falkenburg in early 2010. At face value, their numbers have swelled to five and they have signed a record deal.
Beyond that – and via common opinion – the Aberystwyth band have spent the last two years fine tuning their pop sensibilities. A new album, Furniture, due next month, does little to dispel rumours.
“Goodbye Falkenburg was more a collection of songs, it felt like more of a mash. This is much more direct and there’s a lot more space to it,” explains drummer Gwion Llewelyn.
“Furniture is more rhythmic and based around melodies. Meilyr, his words are quite strong and direct so we wanted to work around that.
“These days bands seem to go with what’s happening on the scene. That’s not what we want to do. It was a group thing and we’ve not worked like that before. We sat together and experimented with a lot of stuff and lot of different sounds.
“We have loads of MiniDisc full of just terrible experiments and sounds that we made in the run up to recording.”

Singer Meilyr Jones adds: “All the new music I was hearing seemed to be hidden behind reverb, behind a veneer of cool. We wanted to make something much more stark and direct.”
According to the drummer, the addition of harpist-turned-guitarist Mali Llewelyn and percussionist Dan Bradley has added an extra dimension to the band on Furniture. The album is pin-sharp, inspired by Roxy Music, Soft Cell and Dexy’s Midnight Runners – also by the disco at the youth hostel they were staying at during recording sessions.
“It was full of Spanish tourists dancing to Michael Jackson,” says guitarist Dylan Hughes. “We were there on the dance floor trying to work out why it sounded so good, analysing Quincy Jones’s production and thinking, how did he get that hi-hat sound, or that groove?”
Llewelyn adds: “It was recorded in a weird way. At some point in the studio we were quite surprised how some stuff came together. It was a really fast process, only about one week in Elephant and Castle in London.
“The result is very energetic – we recorded it almost live so you can feel that, hopefully. With the words like they are the melody has to be strong. That’s important. It’s all about getting people to move get a Michael Jackson groove on it or something. Pop melodies that people can relate to.”
On the subject of lyrics – which cover feelings of frustration and the erosion of relationships – Meilyr Jones sourced inspiration from the likes of DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy.
He says: “It’s about people that spend a lot of time together gradually starting not to see each other... If you put a picture on your wall, over time it dissolves into the background. It’s the same when you’re living with someone; they become an object over time.”
Furniture is out September 10. Race Horses Play Festival Number Six, Portmeirion on September 14..
Here is Marged Wedi Blino for your enjoyment as well.. It's not on the new album But it is great.