These New Puritans Issue #35

Beat Pyramid (Domino)

By Anna Breshears
Published: March 1st, 2008 | 12:31pm

These New Puritans’ angular guitar lines, sing-chant delivery, and cryptic lyrics on their stateside debut, Beat Pyramid, are heavily indebted to the Fall’s Mark E. Smith. Like Franz Ferdinand, These New Puritans borrow from the Fall’s Hex Enduction Hour–era post-punk but give its aesthetics a modern makeover. They offer up the same trebly guitar and repetitive beats but with catchier choruses and danceable rhythms. While Smith has retained his characteristic bitterness for the music industry and the world around him, this foursome is hardly anti-commercial. In 2007, the band composed a 15-minute soundtrack to Hedi Slimane’s Dior Homme fashion show (“Navigate, Navigate”), and drummer George Barnett has appeared on “best dressed” lists for NME and GQ.

These New Puritans may be courting fame, but they have a sense of humor about it. In the obviously radio-ready “Elvis,” singer-guitarist Jack Barnett (twin brother of drummer George) proclaims, “Now we’re being watched by experts” and “I’m gonna tell you my secrets … but I can’t find the words,” with a tongue-in-cheek sneer while the icy whine of Sophie Sleigh-Johnson’s synthesizer and an acrid guitar spit out hooks that cannot be resisted. It’s hard to tell if the lyrics on Beat Pyramid are pretentious, nerdy, or an elaborate inside joke, with references to the importance of numbers and colors (“Numerology (Numbers),” “Colours,” “4”), terrorist cells (“Swords Of Truth”), and the melting of polar ice caps (“Infinity Ytinifni”).

No matter what they hope to convey, these 19-year-olds from just north of London are onto something, and it’s impossible to ignore their fluid combination of trance-dub beats and spiky melodies.