More about: The Rhythm Method

Akin to the irritation that Shame felt when people compared them to Fat White Family during their rise to success, it feels like a cop out to instantly compare The Rhythm Method to The Streets. However, much like The Streets, no band better encapsulates the beauty in the mundane and the pain of the suburbs. The simultaneous heaven and hell that you can find in everyday life, the dull nature of the same old faces you see at your local and yet the pure nostalgic joy you get from getting a round in at your local. And where The Streets created expert British hip hop and garage, The Rhythm Method perfectly toe the line between pop and indie, creating undeniably addictive music for disillusioned twenty-somethings. 

How Would You Know I Was Lonely? is a perfect curation of catchy pop songs, filled with irony and laugh-out-loud one liners. Whilst the album’s narrative is that of “a weekend in the life of a fundamentally sad male”, it’s delivered in a package full of entertaining lyricism and a synth backing track that’ll get you up and dancing like a Dad at karaoke. In fact, the whole album encapsulates a strong karaoke vibe. Proper karaoke, like going to your local to sing ‘Angels’ rather than heaving, trendy bars, where people queue up to ironically sing Natalie Imbruglia’s ‘Torn’. 

For fans of the Rhythm Method, this album has been a remarkably long time coming. Singles ‘Local, Girl’, ‘Something for the Weekend’ and ‘Ode2Joey’ have been knocking around YouTube for as long as publications like The Guardian have been calling them “ones to watch”. ‘Party Politics’, a demo that was sadly left off the album, has long since been a regular aux request in the twilight hour kitchens of South London parties. But the band haven’t failed to deliver on new music. ‘Sex and the Suburbs’, ‘Magic Hour’ and ‘Wandsworth Plain’ contain the same individuality that hooked many to the band with their first listen to ‘Home Sweet Home.’ 

Standout track ‘Single Life’ is an undeniably funky electronic song with the underlying beat of a pre-recorded Yamaha audio clip, punctuated by a catchy chorus and the witty lyricism that we’ve come to expect from the pair. Lines like “at the very least, he knows the middle east when he’s high on party politics” and “pass the Courvoisier, sex up your dossier, 45 minutes, Uber and out” perfectly encapsulate the bleak and dreary loneliness of romantic dejection, and staying at the party instead of heading home to face your ‘Single Life’. 

The wait for this debut has been a long one, full of testing patience and worn out YouTube views. Mid-2018 it was easy to believe that the pair may fade into obscurity, with only slight relief coming in the form of a novelty World Cup song and a handful of London tour dates. But the wait has paid off, and this debut is filled to the brim with the comically droll notes on melancholy that we’ve all been so desperately longing for. 

How Would You Know I Was Lonely? is released on 21 June 2019 via Moshi Moshi. 

More about: The Rhythm Method