These New Puritans
Reviewed by Sean O'Neal
March 18th, 2008
The UK's relentless Xeroxing of its heroes has made it de rigueur to draw easy parallels, so it's tempting to say the post-punk revival has finally produced its own pixilated copy of The Fall in new Southend spitters These New Puritans. Certainly Mark E. Smith's Mancunian mumbles—as well as the smart stab-and-spit attack of other era notables like Gang Of Four and Wire—loom large over the blistering declamatory statements and angular skittering of the group's debut, Beat Pyramid; it's right there in the name, after all. But while These New Puritans similarly dig repetition and they're never gonna lose it, the upstart quartet has another quarter-century of influences up its tattered sleeve: Try as they might to distance themselves from the eager-to-please likes of Klaxons, the singles "C. 16th" and "Elvis" have a modern indie-dance kick that should similarly put emaciated asses in motion, and surprisingly sensitive ballads like "Navigate" and "Costume" could only come from a group of shrewd post-millennials who actually care about moving units. Futures and pasts, indeed.