Bombay Bicycle Club – Shuffle
Since winning a competition to open the UK festival V in 2006, London’s Bombay Bicycle Club have been stealthily building momentum. The precocious four-piece had to wait until they finished school before releasing their first album ‘I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose’ in 2009, but the wait was worth it. NME dubbed them ‘the hottest band to come from North London for quite some time’ and Radio 1’s Zane Lowe quickly declared himself a fan.
Their third album ‘A Different Kind Of Fix’ is released at the end of August, with ‘Shuffle’ offering an early glimpse of just what to expect. Stepping away from the more overtly folk-tinged sound of last album ‘Flaws’, ‘Shuffle’ sees the band in ebullient form. An insistent piano refrain underpins the track, which bounces along in a fashion that is likely to make it a regular feature in indie discos up and down the land, if such things still exist.
If the band is concerned this tonal gear-change will cause problems with their fans, they aren’t showing it. “We didn’t feel that we needed to tie this record with the acoustic album,” lead singer Jack Steadman told The Arts Desk. “because for us that was just a side project and we didn’t feel that we needed the new one to make sense with it.”
Time will tell if this gamble will pay off, but judging from the ecstatic response the band have been receiving at festivals like Glastonbury, T in the Park and Reading and Leads, they shouldn’t have too much to worry about.
As an added bonus, Bombay Bicycle Club’s version of John Martyn’s ‘Fairytale Lullaby’ will be appearing on a forthcoming tribute to the great man, along with contributions from artists like Beck, Snow Patrol and the Cure’s Robert Smith.
