Hello, it’s me Alli, Panic Manual’s resident Courteeners fanatic. Ricky is in the process of being converted. The Courteeners are back with a new album entitled “Falcon” – released in the UK on February 22 (no info yet on a North American release date).
I expressed to Ricky this morning that even in its not-very-original, lad-rock laden sound, thoughts of this album have made me lose a small amount of sleep. I guess the main issue is that I was impressed with their debut and saw a lot of potential there. Liam Fray’s lyrics fall into a lot of cliches – entire songs about weird nights out in Manchester and shit talking about fan girls and cokeheads – but underneath that, he’s excellent at telling the listener about said cliches. The only difference I see between this album and St. Jude is that there are some songs about being far away from loved ones now that he’s traveled the world. Nitpicky differences such as the addition of keyboards and a more “produced” sound, both of which are probably due to a bigger recording budget, left me a bit confused upon first listen. Aside from these complaints, it’s really hard to ignore the fact that almost every one of their songs is damn catchy.
Fray gives his own little tributes to Morrissey, who took The Courteeners on tour with him last year and is likely responsible for anyone outside of northern England being aware of their existence. The line “Angel as you go down, I’ll let you know tomorrow/Change your plea to guilty and another day we’ll borrow” from “Will It Be This Way Forever?” clearly, well, borrows from his solo tracks “Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together” and “I’ve Changed my Plea to Guilty”. The song “Scratch Your Name Upon my Lips” could be interpreted as a reference to a line from the Smiths track “Rusholme Ruffians” – okay, that one may be a stretch.
Anyway, I don’t think I’m ever going to come to a real conclusion about this album. I want to like it but I’m annoyed Liam Fray (let’s face it, this band might as well be Liam Fray and his Courteeners) hasn’t evolved in any way, and I wonder if he ever will. Since the songs are so catchy and sometimes amusing to listen to, I’m just gonna go with the flow whenever my brain tells me to listen to it.
