The Rumble Strips - Welcome To The Walk Alone

Many a comparison has been made between ‘Welcome To The Walk Alone’, the second album by Devon’s very own young soul rebels The Rumble Strips, and last year’s Last Shadow Puppets album. The basis for these claims is down to the fact that orchestration for both records was supplied by Arcade Fire / Final Fantasy man Owen Pallett. Yet, whilst there was nothing wrong with the aforementioned album, the CD that we have here bears very little resemblance with it, either sonically or in it’s attitude and outlook.

The touch of producer Mark ‘faster and with trumpets’ Ronson is evident here, albeit only slightly. Frontman Charlie Waller has been bought to the fore in the recording process if before The Rumble Strips seemed like a ragtag bunch of rock n soul dreamers, now the band (fleshed out by a new permanent bassist) form a backdrop for Watt’s songs that thankfully still retain the bands old spirit, singing about girls and weather.

The much fuller sound suits the new batch of songs well and there’s barely a duff track amongst them, for a closer ‘Happy Hell’ nearly fails to make it to the epic standard that The Rumble Strips have set themselves up to and the fact that it finishes so suddenly doesn’t help matters. Still it’s far from a bad song and we can safely say that if a certain other one of Ronson’s collaborators were to have written it then it would be by far the best in their cannon. Misstep aside, it’s easy to focus on the positive.

Lead single ‘London’ is the song that most sounds like the band’s debut, with huge soaring choruses propelled by the magnificent brass section that forms the backbone of the band. Whilst ‘Dem Girls’ tells the story of adolescent lust for the girls of the big city from a believable viewpoint. Even songs such as ‘Raindrops’ with the exclamation of “let’s be rain” sound triumphant. Of all songs here we feel that it’ll be ‘Not The Only Person’ that’ll have people coming back to this album again and again, more than any other. The story of a mugging where the mugger is given some sympathy is not the everyday subject of a pop song and is done so brilliantly, adding an electric guitar to the sound of The Rumble Strips, which is more than welcome addition.

There’s no gimmick with this band. This is simply a group writing songs from the heart and performing them with all of the gusto that they can manage. It may not be quite as good as the groups first album (‘Girls And Weather’) but as far as pop music in 2009 goes, this is top notch.