ON Christmas Day, Radiohead sneaked out a song called Spectre, which had been bumped from the title sequence of the latest James Bond film by Sam Smith’s Writing’s On The Wall. The month before that, Bellshill band De Rosa sneaked out a song called Spectres, a taster for their forthcoming third album, Weem.
Now, as much as I’d like to hear Thom Yorke serenading 007’s on-screen adventures, it’s the other similarly-named track that I’ve been returning to again and again with increasing excitement.
Weem, which will be released on January 22, marks the first new De Rosa material since 2009’s Prevention. It also sees the band move from Chemikal Underground (the record label set up by members of The Delgados, on which De Rosa’s debut Mend was released in 2006) to Rock Action (the record label run by members of Mogwai). And that’s quite fitting because De Rosa’s style has always encompassed something of the compositional depth of the former band as well as the tension and textures of the latter.
“Musically, Prevention was quite restrained both dynamically and melodically,” says De Rosa’s singer, guitarist and main songwriter Martin John Henry.
“This was deliberately done in order to create a certain tension. I think my tastes have changed since then and I’ve learned to enjoy melody a lot more, something I’ve practised on both my solo album and the EP with Gill Fleetwood.”
Henry’s solo record, The Other Half Of Everything, came out in 2011 while his four-track On The Forest Floor EP with State Broadcasters’ Gillian Fleetwood brought a new pastoral sound to his palette last April.
Despite what he says, melody has always been an element in Henry’s work: no-one could argue that songs such as Cathkin Braes on Mend or A Love Economy and Pest on Prevention weren’t blessed with wonderful tunes.
However, although the darker synth-pop of Chip On My Shoulder and snappy piano hook of The Sea Cup prove that the new album contains songs as instantly catchy as anything De Rosa have ever done, Henry doesn’t long for wider mainstream exposure.
“I see melody as the main thing about a song,” he says. “It’s what should be good enough to draw you in and stick with you. It’s more than ‘catchiness’, I think, when a melody can stick with you for life. And then there’s a responsibility to deliver words that are worthy of a melody like that. Roy Orbison has some stuff like that, where the melody and the lyrics are completely intertwined and can move me even just thinking about them.”
The band are currently booking their own gigs in support of the new album without a manager or live agent.
Weem will be launched at a Celtic Connections tie-in concert at the Hug And Pint in Glasgow this Saturday, with dates in Dundee (January 23), Edinburgh (January 30) and Aberdeen (January 31) also in the diary. After that, more touring is promised, although De Rosa have also been commissioned by Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life in Coatbridge to create work based on its collection.
For those who have noted Henry’s habit for namechecking his native Lanarkshire in lyrics and song titles (Cathkin Braes, New Lanark and Hattonrigg Pit Disaster on Mend alone), such a project will come as no surprise.
For the time being though, it’s back to listening to Weem, from the wonderful escalating structure of opener Spectres to the slight Radiohead vibe of closer, The Mute.
Actually, come to think of it, maybe De Rosa would have given James Bond and Sam Smith a better run for their money.
Weem is released on Rock Action Records on January 22. For tour dates, see www.derosaband.com
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