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The Crimea ‘Tragedy Rocks’

added 17 October 2005 at 12.35

It hasn’t been so much a case of tragedy rocking for The Crimea, more tragedy waiting. The London five-piece have had this stellar set of songs in their arsenal for a while now and have been biding their time as their debut album took a backseat to record company red tape.

Now finally granted a release, ‘Tragedy Rocks’ has arrived to prove that you can do slow, powerful, emotive epics without having to be James Blunt or Keane or Coldplay or any other bands that have a pound sign where their heart should be.

The Crimea instead follow in the lineage of classic bands, at times echoing 80s R.E.M., or an alt.country Pixies. At the centre of their sonic swirls lies Davey Macmanus, seething-in-tongues like a deathly crooner, fists clenched around a melody that he threatens to clobber you with any second now. At a perfect 38 minutes long, ‘Tragedy Rocks’ leaves you with each song vying for brainspace, each chorus trampolining on your eardrum, offering you no alternative but to press play again.
 
The first four tracks are lessons in how to dispatch pop songs with equal parts accuracy and bombast; ‘White Russian Galaxy’ starts off with a lone, vaudeville melancholy piano but the tune soon comes pounding in, handing the reins over to a chorus that sounds like The Beach Boys fronted by Charles Manson, ‘Lottery Winners On Acid’ is quirky indie pop gone Hawaiian, whilst it’s on ‘Opposite Ends’ that Davey first gets to impose himself, his calmly psychotic ranting providing the perfect path to a swirling, dark chorus of whispers. ‘Girl Just Died’ and ‘Bad Vibrations’ both display The Crimea’s taunting, grim playfulness; the former is the happiest song you’ll hear all year about your other half’s heart stopping, a wistful singalong based around the words, “If you wanna see my happy side/Better tell me that my girl just died”, whilst the latter basks in the self-pity of being cursed, turning Brian Wilson’s sandy-beached view of the world on its head.

The album ends with a mourning paean, ‘Someone’s Crying’, Davey putting up a pleading, passionate fight with God, before ending in a solemn shrug of the shoulders. The Crimea have made the sort of debut that is rarely seen these days, a debut not just made up of great songs, but an album that points to the future, a signpost to even better things ahead. Don’t go telling them that, though; it’s the misery in the madness here that singles The Crimea out from the rest.

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