The Short Stories 'The Night is on Fire'

Review by Paul Towler

The opening line 'it's not been the best of weekends...' accompanied by a lone piano tinkle has to be one of the most endearing openings in pop history, neatly setting the scene for much of everyday melodrama to follow.

But before we look closer at the music here, let's take a quick history check. The Short Stories were formed in 2007 by long-serving songsmith and veteran of the Bristol indie scene Tim Rippington. This latest incarnation is the continuation of a long pedigree of bands including 80's jangle popsters The Five Year Plan and more recently, fuzzy lo-fi exponents Forest Giants, who were co-founded with Ruth Cochrane formerly of The Blue Aeroplanes.
 

'The Night Is On Fire' is the band's second album and features, among others, a cameo appearance by Martin Bramah hitherto of The Fall. The melanchonic synthesizers on the opener 'It Only Hurts When I Move' stir up a bleak, icy cold atmosphere reminiscent of early Kraftwerk. The deadpan refrain 'I've got a car that won't start and food that won't stay down' speaks of commonplace hiccups we can all relate to.

On this album of stunning contrasts, the second track 'Closing Time' couldn't be more different in feel to the first. Here is a breezy, care-free bouncing summer singalong, the kind of disposable pop perfection that you'd expect to see spinning merrily at 45rpm on a dusty old Danset mono complete with snaps and crackles to accompany the generous serving of pop. It's a warm lovelorn tale of unrequited love in a café, with hearts being left out to dry like the tea towels. Since the dawn of rock 'n' roll, legions of bookish pop kids have confined themselves to their bedrooms, slaving away on cheap guitars strumming a handful of makeshift chords with the romantic notion that a rainbow's end must forever be pursued, knowing that the perfect pop song still is, and always will be, just waiting to be written. It's reassuring to learn that here in 2009, here is as good an example of home-spun pop perfection as ever.

Further into the album, 'Disconnect me' is a cold anticipation of growing old, quivering with an ambient Eno-esque numbness. Meanwhile, the final cut 'Adoration' is a mellow yet eerie landscape punctuated by a lone bass drum, haunting tambourine, and sweetly delivered retrospective vocals creating a spooky quietness akin to the Velvet Underground's 'Pale Blue Eyes' or Blur's 'Tender'.

The Short Stories have delivered a wonderfully diverse album of light and dark, funny and sad, pitching the perfect balance between lo-fi fizz and playful pop. As far as Bristol is concerned, it seems that the city's younger bands have something quite tall to live up to when it comes to quality pop. The Short Stories are the latest chapter in a long family tree of bands that have been delivering perfectly crafted musical excellence for the past two decades. Let's hope there's still much more to come.