Anxiety, let it be said, is a bastard. I’ll give you an example. I work with just about the nicest people in the world. I just had a new computer, which I broke after two weeks. My head said they’d be sound, my mind on the other hand, convince me of all sorts. That’s how it works.
Something tells me, that Pet Needs singer George Marriott would understand. I feel like if you have anxiety I mean really suffer with anxiety, then you’ll get “Intermittent Fast Living”.
The whole thing is riddled with it. From the line on the opening track “How Are You?” When he sings “another day obsessing over lyrics that a few of you will relate to”, to basically the whole of “Separation Anxiety” , it’s a study into a war in the mind.
Yet what Pet Needs are worrying about is anyone’s guess. I’d seen them open for Frank Turner and Frank had said that he hopes to open for the band when they headlined Wembley Stadium. On this evidence, he may not have been joking.
“….Living” Is a scrappy, scuzzy study into punky indie, yet it is so much more. “Fingernails” is typical. Clever – almost witty – stuff, supremely original and incredibly catchy.
Some of them, though, really resonate. Take “The Age That You Were. It is a wonderfully off-kilter look at not feeling like you’re grown up enough, while the aforementioned Turner, would be proud of the brilliant “Self Restraint” – Key line: “to me, a quiet mind is just a concept I understand the benefits, just haven’t found the fun yet”
Even the ballads here don’t sound like anyone else, “Lucid” isn’t going to find it’s way onto any Hallmark greetings cards, but it’s all the better for it.
Best of the lot, though, is the fizz bomb of “Sleep When I’m Dead” (most definitely not a Bon Jovi cover) I’m not sure how you top the line “ill sleep when I’m dead, or when I’m next in bed” so I won’t try.
This is a record that could only be made when you’ve been in a band for a while. “The Optimist” or “Trip” for example take the idea of being on the road (the latter with the thought “another trip round the world for us, dreaming of when we can do the same but in a bigger bus”) could only be written by an experienced band.
But they can just have a punk freak out if they want. “Burning Building” will get mosh pits going wherever it’s played and an example of the tenderness and skill with which they right comes with the last one “Buried Together”, the sort of tale that Billy Bragg might find room for, these are stories of everyone, from a band the represents us all.
I’ll be totally honest with you, I don’t even like indie music usually. This though is an absolute beauty. The best way of describing it is simply this: if the Hold Steady were from Essex instead of Minnesota they may do something like this. Praise does not come any higher as far as I’m concerned.
On “Self Restraint” Marriott talks about reading a bad review of one of his other albums again and again I understand that, anyone who focuses on criticism would. On that basis he may never read this, but I hope he does because “Intermittent Fast Living” is an absolutely sensational record.
Oh and in case you were wondering, the computer? They couldn’t have been nicer. But you knew that anyway. So did I even if my head wouldn’t let me believe it. Pet Needs get it.
Rating 9.5/10
