TOWNS - Get By (2014) Lossless

Weston-super-Mare four-piece TOWNS have been knocking around for two or three years, dealing in pleasant (but hardly earth-shattering) ‘90s-indebted indie. On this, their debut LP, they display the potential to pull themselves up from the support-band status with which they have been stuck for some time now and claim their place alongside mainstream indie’s big hitters.

It is a good job that the sound of ‘90s is en vogue at the moment; TOWNS sound more or less like a perfect cross between My Bloody Valentine and early Blur, with a smidgen of The Charlatans thrown in for good measure. James MacClucas’ reedy, slightly vulnerable vocal delivery is uncannily reminiscent of Tim Burgess’, and the layers of fuzzy, backwards-reverberating guitars sound, if not like they could be taken from Loveless, certainly like Kevin Shields himself could have had a quick fiddle with the band’s pedalboards. Luckily, Get By largely packs enough of a melodic punch to allow Towns to get away with this more-the-merrier approach to channeling their influences.

2012 single “Just Everything” appears here in a newly re-recorded version, and its chorus is still utterly infectious, although it does suffer slightly from losing its former polish to the album’s scrappier approach to production. “Too Tired” is lovely, carried by guitars whose headstocks are stuck firmly in the clouds and a rock-solid, Reni-esque drum groove. “Marbles” occupies similar territory to much of peace’s In Love LP, but benefits from a touch more bite. It is this bite, along with their knack for relatively predictable but undeniably catchy vocal hooks, that saves Towns from sounding like no more than yet another half-arsed gang of floppy-fringed ‘90s revivalists, of which there have been far too many in the last two or three years.

Get By is not an album to really give today’s British indie scene the vigorous shake it needs - it’s just too derivative and the production is just a little too amateurish - but it contains enough accomplished, assured songwriting to suggest that they just might have the talent to administer that shake if only they are allowed some time to grow.