British India - Guillotine (Album)

Guillotine bursts through the speakers right from the get-go as it opens with a killer double hit… the full blooded kick to the head that is ‘Black and White Radio’ (the album’s first single that’s been doing the rounds since the beginning of the year) followed by the current single ‘Tie Up My Hands’. Of the two it’s ‘Black and White Radio’ that really leaves an impression with its frenetic shouts of ‘go go go go’ and taunting lyrics (‘you make friends with ugly people, so you stand out from the crowd’) as well as its we’re-just-holding-this-beast-together riff-heavy sound. In comparison ‘Tie Up My Hands’ sounds like the weakling little brother tagging along behind it’s bigger, muscle-bound sibling, but the screeching riffs in the bridge and the impassioned vocals are enough to redeem the thin drum sound in the background.

It’s a damn fine start to the debut album for Melbourne rockers British India and, as their name would suggest (British by name, British by nature), their sound is more mother country than convict colony. They owe more of a debt to classic British 60s rock, brit-pop and more contemporary British guitar rockers like The Cribs, Arctic Monkeys and Nine Black Alps than Aussie pub rock sounds. It’s a sound that’s full of big riffs, crashing drums and the sing/shout vocals of Declan Melia.

After the cracking pace set by the opening tracks, unfortunately, the rest of Guillotine follows a pretty similar pattern…. part inspired brilliance and part derivative mediocrity. ‘Russian Roulette’ and ‘Automatic Pulse’ have a similar energy to ‘Black and White Radio’ - with soaring guitar solos, big riffs and complex rhythms they’re some of the best tracks on the album along with ‘Edgy Looking Clothes’ with its Blur meets 60s rock sound and killer lyrics. Much of the rest of the album, however, is pretty uninteresting musically and quite often (on ‘Houseparty’, ‘Teenage Mother’ and ‘Council Flat’ for example) relies too heavily on Melia’s vocals. His vocals are definitely strong and distinctive (at times) and as a result they’re obviously a big part of British India’s sound, but they’re not enough to carry a full album without consistent musical back-up.

My final complaint about the album is a little petty, but I’m going to run with it anyway. They wear their influences on their sleaves (and that’s fair enough), but the obsession seems to go a step further – the cover art images could have been ripped from a London guidebook, there’s a track on the album called ‘Council Flat’ and there’s even a hint of a British accent in the spoken line at the start of ‘Teenage Mother’. For a band from Melbourne it feels like a posturing grab at some geographically distant cool.

Nevertheless, if you like the singles there’s probably going to be enough here to make Guillotine worth your while.

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