| iLiKETRAiNS, with their pretentious syntax, raised the bar that must be surpassed before they’d even begun. And clearly not ones for the 5 minute quick crossword, they choose to up the ante further by soldering on ambitious themes to boot, packed densely with peering-pensively-over-their-spectacles audacity. Considering the odds they’ve pulled off one hell of a coup d’etat, enforcing their self-imposed directives to the letter and coming across in the process as erudite, armoured and fairly bloody invincible. Fucking up might be a subject they broach repeatedly through song, but ‘tis not an actual deed they’re in the business of indulging. And yes, there is some bloodshed. Given the settings it was inevitable.
David Martin’s gothic tenor suits his role not as participant or emotional diarist, but as unflinching narrator. Each and every song in their canon is a historical epic. Literally. Topics up for dissection include the assassination of a British Prime Minister in 1812 (‘Spencer Percival’), the Afghan massacre of the British Army in 1842 (‘Remnants Of An Array’) and the Great Fire of London (‘Twenty Five Sins’). As ridiculous as the sound of a man announcing that “this tooown is burning dooown” and “this time the French are not to blaaame” with a croaking baritone over a thumping funereal pace and tense, paranoid atmospherics may be, the unfaltering nature of his character is key to this album’s success, pulling you in close to every tale’s nervous heartbeat. There are no exceptions to the rule, but this is not a concept album. They are a concept band, which is much more impressive, if you can pull it off.
Whichever angle you approach this collection from there is no mistaking that each and every performance contributes to a weighty tome of some importance; detail, darkness and dexterity practically unparalleled. Nothing strictly revolutionary, they are observers after all, but they’ve liberated a niche with quite some certainty and dug a moat around it. It feels like the forecast is for continued light showers of hell-fire.
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