Field Music - (I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing

With their fourth album, ‘Plumb’, ready to hit shelves (and iTunes) in early 2012 the Brewis brothers return with this piece of elegant jerky indie pop.

The north-east’s finest have never quite broken through, like some of their counterparts – hopefully ‘A New Thing’ will change that. It bursts out with some high-pitched flourishes before settling into its off kilter stride, the XTC-inspired staccato rhythms, falsetto vocals and self-doubting lyrics congealing into 3 minutes of expertly crafted pop music.

David has said that ‘Plumb’ deals with duty and obligations to the people you love and here he intones in falsetto that he’s trying to ‘Find ways to persuade you’ before deciding that ‘eloquence is overrated’ and repeating ‘I’m wasting time, what good can I do.’

‘New Thing’ is pop shot through a kaleidoscopic cannon of wonky ideas about what pop means. It’s informed by the best bits of British guitar music but, though the fingerprints of nostalgia are all over this track, Field Music grab it and rethink it to produce something that, four albums in, shows a band continuing to master their sound to create something fresh and invigorating. Now is the time for them to break through.