Possible Humans — Everybody Split (Trouble in Mind)
Everybody Split by Possible Humans
Possible Humans, from Melbourne, play a jangly, scrabbly indie pop filled with nervy tension and blocked longing, working the same general territory as contemporaries like the Woolen Men and Salad Boys, or going further back, Guided by Voices, the Go Betweens and R.E.M. At least two guitars are in play at all times, strumming densely layered like rain on a tin roof and often an electric arcing out in its own melodic trajectory over top.
There are five Possible Humans, three of them brothers — that’s Steve, Mark and Adam Hewitt— plus Leon Cranswick and Sam Tapper. At least three of them sing, though it’s mostly Steve Hewitt and Sam Tapper, and they do a lot of instrument switching. There was one seven inch and an improvised tape recording before Everybody Split, but if you don’t live in Melbourne, you probably missed both. Not to worry, the album in hand makes a taut, succinct statement, bristling with angst and melting into melancholy. It is rather good in the mysterious way of rock records; hard to say what it does better than the other records, but it does it all the same.
Five members share writing duties, so it’s probably futile to try to discern a theme. I will hazard, nonetheless, that a lot of the songs seem to be about figuring out a responsible way to be a man. There is, indeed, a song called “Aspiring to Be a Bloke,” and lyrics in the very first cut, “Lungs of the City,” wedge an observation, that “We feigned love and serendipity/You put us down with a dose of toxic masculinity,” into a twitchy rock angst.
There is also, possibly, a nod to the unmoored unprotectedness of early adulthood in the slashing staccato single “The Thump,” which seems to be about being cared for and then not and perhaps about renegotiating a relationship with loving, now superfluous parents (“I know exactly why you came/to open doors and let my eyeballs rain/ To fix the shirts that hide the wear.”)
And yet, what it all means seems subsidiary to how it all sounds, which is jittery antic and sweet-shot-with-sadness, with melodies that start out brash and curve into rueful minor chords, with a rush of rhythm that rolls over uncertainties without ever quite hiding the fact that they’re there. “Orbiting Luigi,” for instance, has a lovely chiming lilt to it. It is gentler and more melodic than the songs that book-end it, and it jingles wistfully around a delicate, indelible tune that could have come from Tobin Sprout in his GBV prime.
The harder, more urgent songs are fun, too – “Stinger,” “Absent Swimmer” and “Lung of the City” to name three— but the disc’s highlight is a long sloping droner, “Born Stoned.” This one has vocals, but they come in quite late, and are, really a bit beside the point, because the thing about it is guitar tone. It’s lovely, radiant really, two guitars skywriting vapor trails of whammied hanging notes. One guitar, no idea whose, settles into a glittery, blues-inflected vamp that reminds me of Dire Straits, and in a decade plus of writing about guitar bands, that has never happened before. It has Knopfler’s easy, lounging, note-clear grace, like of course he could play faster, but why would he when he can make one bent note sound like that?
Um yeah, back to Possible Humans, a very good guitar band in a world that has grown tired of them. If you haven’t, check out Everybody Split.
Walk slowly around each corner of our absent minds
Mi stavo perdendo dentro i testi di Everybody Split, il disco d'esordio dei Possible Humans, ed era una lettura inspiegabilmente appagante, che assomigliava più a un lasciarsi andare alla deriva, di immagine in immagine, trasportati dalle fitte trame di chitarre e dai nonsensi. Era un po' come se quell'inafferrabile flusso di coscienza riflettesse la struttura stessa delle canzoni, il loro scorrere libero ma non scomposto, tra riff che emergono d'improvviso, acuti e taglienti, per poi dilatarsi, dileguarsi e mutare in altri colori...
