Eastern Lane - 'The Article' (Rough Trade) Released 14/02/05

With this, their second album, Berwick boys Eastern Lane are clearly trying to moisten the listener’s appetite with a diverse blend of angular indie-rock, hushed ballads, all mixed together with peculiar lyrics. Yet, despite all this promise, bar a few notable exceptions for the most part ‘The Article’ sadly lacks character or a whiff of individuality.

Case in point is the two-minute opener ‘Daffodils For My Mother’. On the veneer it’s a squealing, crude ditty imbued with vivacity and kick-starts the album with plenty of gusto. Ultimately, however, it merely sounds like a pretty average rendition of a Surfa Rosa-era Pixies track – an imitation that is repeated again later on with ‘Pretty Good’. Elsewhere, on the piano driven ‘I Feel Liberated’ front man Derek Meins shows a more pensive and reflective side, yet the track is just another middling indie-ballad the likes of which have been regurgitated countless times before. And, aside from the beguiling title, ‘I Said Pig On A Friday’ is a fairly uninspiring shout fest with the snarling Meins momentarily slipping into sorry Johnny Rotten imitations. In truth, at times, Eastern Lane are a band that seem distinctly less than the sum of their influences and contemporaries.

But maybe that’s all being too harsh on the lads, for on occasion they exhibit very promising qualities indeed. In fact ‘The Article’ is unquestionably at its most buoyant when Eastern Lane are free of the shackles of being either consciously edgy or contemplative. Tracks like ‘For The Sun’, ‘No 5’ ‘Feed Your Addiction’ are all infinitely more fluid and natural - and consequently sound genuine and make for a much more satisfying listen. Unfortunately though, such peaks fail to divert attention away from the conspicuous troughs elsewhere on the album.