Calories - Basic Nature

How the hell do you follow what was one of 2009’s most thrilling debuts? Well, first of all, you need to get the successor released about as soon as you can manage. Calories have done this with little difficulty. Some bands sit on their albums until long after any buzz has died down, but Birmingham’s ‘other’ best noise-pop trio have remained quite active throughout the last year and a half that’s passed since ‘Adventuring’ surfaced.

We suppose, then, that you could say the band’s speedy delivery has a lot in common with the songs they write. ‘Adventuring’ ran to a mere 23 minutes after all, and that’s over ten tracks. Brevity proved to be the group’s strong suit, however, as the record proved that it wasn’t just ‘good for a debut’, it was good full stop.

Barely two minutes have elapsed on ‘Basic Nature’ before its second song ‘You Can Be Honest’ has come skidding to a halt. You could be forgiven that absolutely no progression has been made. Well, that’s where you’d be wrong. The album kicks off with a short snippet of distorted drums (the first ‘part’ of the title track) before giving way to crashing guitars and frontman John Biggs’ vocals, a frenetic, sub-two minute song that is actually least indicative of where the group have taken their sound.

‘FFWD’ follows. The album’s lead single, it is perhaps the poppiest song Calories have written so far. No punches are pulled in the lyrics department, either: the song’s message is ‘the old days were better by far’. Gang vocals and vintage synths (seriously) supplement the song’s sarcastic, biting chorus of ‘Fast forward twenty years’. Still sure about your ‘no progression’ argument?

There are further surprises in store, with no less than two acoustic songs (!) present on the album, with the latter, ‘Altitude Sickness’ displaying the band at their most tender: ‘I will never know how much I loved you so’.

The finest moments on ‘Basic Nature’ are reserved for the three-song run that forms the heart of the record, consisting of three songs very different from each other. ‘Mortal Boys’ finds the trio relying on pounding drums and massive, anthemic choruses. ‘Even Stevens’, meanwhile, is an uptempo foot-stomper in the vein of Pavement, and ‘Let’s Pretend That We’re Older’ is reminiscent of early Biffy Clyro material; a song that would have slotted in perfectly on ‘Blackened Sky’.

While the band are known for knocking out short songs (and indeed, much of this album conforms to that pattern) there is great potential for them to try their hand at more unusual creations. Penultimate track ‘The Brink’ is a seven-minute, multi-part epic that’s far and away the most ambitious thing they’ve written thus far. While ‘The New X’ ties up the loose ends sufficiently, its predecessor is stunning, and its message of ‘We’re standing on the brink of something really big this time’ rings true. This record hits all its targets, easily pipping ‘Adventuring’, while signalling that Calories could indeed be headed for bigger things.