Polock - Getting Down From The Trees Album Review

Getting Down From The Trees opens with 'High On Life', which instantly sounds flavours of the likes of Friendly Fires and Phoenix. Powered forward by a Strokes-esque indie drive in the blend of guitars, drums and funky melodic bass parts, as its title suggests, 'High On Life' is an inoffensive feel good track, perfectly ripe for the summer. 'Fireworks' continues in a similar vein, think Phoenix, MGMT et al; Polock, a band hailing from Valencia, Spain, have clearly infused the sun-loving, feel-good, European feel into their music.

'Nice To Meet You' opens with a slower solo electric piano introduction which sounds resemblance to some of the rarer early Keane stuff ('Under The Walnut Tree' etc). The track builds layer by layer; beat, bass and more layers of synths then guitars, with a Theremin-like synth melody leading its' extended instrumental introduction, before the song kicks in again with a summer-infused Strokes kind of vibe and a poppy chorus. Later, 'Sometimes' starts with bass and vocals over a percussive muted electric guitar pulse. Already the album has established the clean, precise synths and production of contemporary synth pop combined with hints of a grungier, fuzzy, lo-fi indie guitar blend. 'Faster Love' is ironically a slower, more gentle track in contrast to it's' title, opening with strummed guitar and vocals before launching into a chorus that really exposes the vocals and the heavily accented English.

Towards the close of the album, the same-y, repetitive nature of Polock's writing unfortunately begins to grate. With the exception of the odd suggestion, there's no real change of pace which is a shame given the overall vibe and production of Getting Down From The Trees is sound. 'Tangerines And Unicorns' is notable only for its' cleaner, less treble-heavy sound and dominant, active bass part beneath, whereas 'Tender Lies' grows out of a bed of echoing picked guitars into a split-vocal chorus and later into a catchy outro complete with powerful pounding bass. The largely instrumental track 'Defenceless' is again pretty monotonous and dull, never really seeming to move to anything with its only notable point of interest being changes of time signature.

Finally, 'Nightshot' forms a just as indifferent conclusion as the tracks that preceded it. Conclusion; good for passive, summery-vibe background music, but an album that could have been so much more.

Hannah Spencer