Emerging as a musical hybrid of such diverse bands as Vampire Weekend and Bloc Party, Bombay Bicycle Club, the four-piece indie rock outfit from the U.K., released their fourth full length album, So Long, See You Tomorrow, on Feb. 3. The eldest band member was not yet 15 when he came up with the band’s name in 2006, which comes from a chain of Indian restaurants. Three years later, they released their debut album with a refreshing melodic approach to post-punk guitar riffs and swing beats.
So Long, See You Tomorrow contains some of the band’s best tracks, yet falls flat everywhere else. The album’s opener, “Overdone,” seems to justify releasing the entire record. “Overdone” seamlessly integrates break beats, overdriven guitars, airy synths, and lightly distorted vocals into a masterful single to which the rest of the album unfortunately pales in comparison. “Carry Me” and “Home By Now” are third and fourth in the lineup, respectively, serving as experiments in Bombay Bicycle Club’s sound. The songs feature a multitude of synthesizers characteristic of electronic pop, and the band layers these sounds over break beats to push the limits of how far their sound can carry.This is essentially where the album stops, or at least where I hoped it would have.
The great experimentation and innovation reaches a writer’s block, and yet a block does not seem sufficient like a metaphor — it’s more like an iceberg. Reverting to the recycled, slow melodies of albums past matched with uninspired, cliché-driven lyrics, “Eyes Off You” seems to embody everything that is wrong with the album. Just when you think there is hope with the track “Feel,” which contains instruments referential to their name, you start perceiving the track as simply a novelty. Save yourself from the Titanic: go listen to “Overdone,” ignore the rest of the album, and hope Bombay Bicycle Club redeems themselves soon.