Westside Cowboy release their highly-anticipated debut album ‘It Goes On’
The Manchester indie sensations have arrived with their explosive and addictive debut album.
★★★★★
Photo: Clementine Schneidermann
Westside Cowboy are here and they are preparing for an absolute take-off. Blink, and I’m afraid you might miss them. You wouldn’t want that now, would you?
The Manchester band’s debut album It Goes On comes fresh off the heels of two wildly successful and exciting EPs. If those two EPs were blistering black and white, hard, fast and loose, then their debut album is bursting in full technicolour with the same spirited energy but with bigger, more refined songs and even wilder, tighter performances.
It Goes On undoubtedly captures the same wild, raw energy that makes Westside Cowboy so addictive to listen to. It is certainly a step up in some regards; it absolutely explodes out of the speakers with the force of a volcanic eruption, but the band makes sure to keep their ramshackle, off-the-rails charm elsewhere on the record too. It all sounds like the logical next step for a band that has been on the precipice of greatness for the past twelve months.
Album opener and lead single The Boys tears through your eardrums with an apocalyptic force to kick things into action. It has everything that makes Westside Cowboy the undeniable force that they are: frantic energy, addictive melodies, swirling guitars and absolutely relentless drums. It is an absolute sonic hurricane.
A machine gun-like drum fill catapults us straight into Paper Chains next. It all sounds like the band are in a race to the top — and they’re in a hurry to get there. The drum breakdown before the outro is manic and unhinged before the spiralling guitars send the song into a cacophonous resolution.
Westside Cowboy are so much more than the sum of their parts though. They capture the sacred magic of four people falling into sync with one another so seamlessly, but still with enough rough edges to keep things unique and interesting.
Paddy Murphy’s incessant and hyperactive drumming keeps everything moving forwards at a million miles an hour tempo at all times. His drumming feels like it could go off the rails at any second but, like all the best drummers, he is never not in total control as he barrels full steam ahead, challenging his bandmates to keep up.
It isn’t all just relentless forward momentum; Worried Age displays their expertise at building blistering tension but knowing exactly when to bubble things up, simmer them down and when to finally go for the throat.
It's perhaps ironic that a song titled Big Wheels is the one that finally slows down the tempo. Complete with a lyrical callback to the John Fogerty-penned soul classic Proud Mary, the song proves that Westside Cowboy can pump out infectious and addictive melodies without having to rely on breakneck pace to deliver them all the time.
After that brief respite, Pin Up Boys follows with the album’s most exciting, energising and irresistible chorus. It’s a song that is powerful enough to prop up an entire album on its own and no matter how hard I try, I cannot get it out of my head. As the song winds down, the guitars and bass drop out and leave the drums, lead vocals and backing vocals alone to bring things home. It only lasts a matter of seconds, but it’s one of the most exhilarating moments I’ve heard on any song all year.
While we could talk plenty about singer Jimmy Bradbury’s caustic melodies or guitarist Reuben Haycock’s Bob Stinson-style manic guitar playing, Westside Cowboy’s real secret weapon is bassist and backing vocalist Aoife Anson O'Connell. O’Connell’s endearing and almost childlike backing vocals are the secret sauce that really takes a lot of these songs into the stratosphere. They sound like a more tuneful version of The Velvet Underground’s Moe Tucker combined with the distinctly human and youthful sound of Yo La Tengo’s Georgia Hubley.
The band slows things down further as the album starts to wind down with Patchwork and Take My Leaving As I Love You. The latter song is an acoustic folk number that sounds like a slightly more downbeat and melancholic sister song to In The Morning, which was the closing song on their last EP.
Not keen on repeating that same trick again to close out their debut album, the band closes things out this time with a jaunty country rock-style song, You Could Have Died There On The Dancefloor. It sees the band ending the album with each member firing on all cylinders and leaves you making sure you remember that listening to It Goes On is to listen to the sound of a genuinely thrilling and exciting band in full swing.
It Goes On feels like a proper collection of songs that were just meant to fit together. It storms out of the blocks with intent but isn’t afraid to take risks, slow things down and loosen up as it arrives towards its conclusion.
Westside Cowboy are clearly not afraid to have fun. As opposed to trying to announce themselves with a perfect and polished debut album, the band have created an absolutely perfectly imperfect collection of songs. It is full of passion, energy and, most importantly, simply unforgettable songs. If you don’t get excited listening to It Goes On, then I think you might not be paying enough attention.
It Goes On is out now via Island Records.
