Gomez are coming! If you haven’t bought a ticket, hurry up and do it now. Because if this album’s anything to go by then the band should be in great form.
In How We Operate they’ve delivered another really good album.
The greatest thing about Gomez is the diversity their albums always offer, due to having three more than capable songwriters in the mix. This album gives all three ample time in front of the mike, and continues on the same vein as 2004’s Split the Difference.
First track ‘Notice’ is a good slow burner. Other stand-out songs are ‘Woman! Man’ which has a fantastically abrupt strumming pattern and ‘How We Operate’ which starts with one of the coolest instruments going round – the banjo – and has singer Ben Ottewell sounding at his blues best. To be perfectly honest there really isn’t a bad track on the whole album.
If I was to have any gripe with the album it would be that the band seems to be pushing a bit more of a commercial sound, a move begun with Split the Difference. The album doesn’t quite have the quirkiness of their earlier works and seems to have a ‘cleaner’ feel which can work either way. Probably about three quarters of the songs deal with love, a ratio that is, in my opinion, a little high. It is also a bit long, maybe just by a song or two.
In spite of this, the album still has good depth and you’ll be hearing new things for a while after the first listen. If anything, it shows that Gomez haven’t lost it, but maybe you’d be better off saving the money you would have spent on the CD, and going to the gig instead. Failing that, go and buy Bring it On.