They call themselves the anti-Gallaghers, which might explain why they sound quite a lot like Bloc Party. But Delphic are more than just openers for their more illustrious tour partners. Encouragingly, they seem to avoid easy catergorisation. Too dance to be indie, too many guitars to be just club music, they fuse the genres in a more natural way than Bloc Party managed on Intimacy, their own electronica effort.
Opener ‘Clarion Call’ is exactly what it claims to be, and although single ‘Doubt’ does open very similarly to BP’s ‘Hunting For Witches’, the vocals are sometimes more reminiscent of Tom Vek, (incidentally, the vocal effects on ‘Red Lights’, compared with Vek’s ‘Nothing But Green Lights’, are similar, and there is an obvious thematic connection) with a chorus which is more like that of a club classic than anything else. The instrumental title-track perhaps most adeptly showcases their dance potential, an epic which spends three minutes building up until it breaks out into a full on rave, compelling beats underpinned all the way by glorious harmonies – and through 8:51 minutes, it never drags.
Sometimes the lyrics lack originality – the opening lines of ‘Halcyon’ are lifted almost directly from Radiohead’s ‘Idioteque,’ the concept of a band asking for ‘something that I can believe in’ is not exactly unheard of, and this song and others (like ‘Counterpoint’) are dependent on compelling drum hooks introduced halfway through to carry them convincingly.
Its a shame that a band with so many great original ideas slip into cliché occasionally, but more often than not, their ideas are rendered with such conviction that they avoid this problem – ‘Clarion Call’ is a case in point. Another is single ‘This Momentary’ – their statement of intent. It has more than a passing semblance in both purpose and musicality to The Gloaming by Radiohead. There the refrain was ‘Your alarm bells/They should be ringing.’ Delphic have a more optimistic outlook, and their imperative is ‘Lets do something real.’ And they duly deliver.
4 stars (8.5)
