We Were Promised Jetpacks
Glasgow, Scotland
Oasis, Interpol, Teenage Fanclub
The next proud member of a burgeoning brood of Scottish indie rock bands, We Were Promised Jetpacks is riding high off the release of their debut full-length. The band will be spending most of 2010 bringing their heartfelt tales of love and loss across Europe, the US, and beyond.
Is it the weather? The single malt scotch? The haggis? Whatever the inspiration, Scotland has produced some darn good bands this millennium–Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad leading the bunch. Now we can add We Were Promised Jetpacks to the canon, after the 2009 release of their highly-acclaimed debut, These Four Walls [Fat Cat].
The band—vocalist and guitarist Adam Thompson, guitarist Michael Palmer, bassist Sean Smith and Darren Lackie on drums–formed as school boys in Edinburgh. The young men entered—and won, unsurprisingly—their high school battle of the bands before migrating to Glasgow to ply their wares and join an already vibrant scene. Like country- and label-mates Frightened Rabbit, WWPJ don’t do anything to obscure their Scottish accents. Quite the contrary: the band emphasizes their native tongue’s rolls and angles, using a pronounced vocal delivery as another weapon in their arsenal.
These Four Walls, the culmination of years of rock-and-toil (the band started up in earnest back in 2003), features driving rhythms, emotive guitars, and even a little glockenspiel, all anchored by rock-solid drums. The tunes vacillate between energetic rockers and dreary—but not too dour—downers, all filled with shimmering cymbals and insistent jangle. The album feels like a release for the band, and a catharsis for the listener.
