Art Brut - "It's a Bit Complicated"

Art Brut - People in Love (Mute 2007)

Art Brut - It's a Bit Complicated - Mute

Though they proclaimed on Bang Bang Rock & Roll that they were only just started, what exactly they were just starting wasn't quite sure. Was Art Brut an elaborate scheme masterminded by Eddie Argos to finally put a band to all those Enrique Gatti songs he wrote without music? Was it merely a 60th anniversary homage to the movement that spawned the name? Was it even more ironic and sharper in critique than LCD Soundsystem? Or was it irony-free and just that base, just that free-spirited, just that fucking fun? The answers were never clear, but the fact remained: Art Brut was a vivacious group with a live reputation to back up their quixotic debut.

Well, they made a sophomore album. And, exactly as you would (or wouldn't) be expecting, it's not complicated at all. In fact, Art Brut is the total, absolute distillation of rock n' roll. There is no excess, the only double meanings are explained as such in the lyrics, the solos come after the choruses if they come at all, the backing vocals swoon on cue. In some ways, Art Brut is actually the antithesis of the movement Jean Dubuffet coined in the 40s. Whereas Dubuffet envisioned a movement by artists who had no predecessors and who inspiration but themselves and their immediate world, Art Brut steal riffs and snatch themes from the great compendium of rock and burn away the mist and the mysticisms to reveal the three-minute pop nuggets which lie beneath.

But as they prove over and over again, there's a reason we fall for them everytime. "Pump Up the Volume" is a perfect opener as Argos rails on in his usual South London slur, but it's the band that you really notice as the riff Ian Catskilkin bangs out sounds cleaner and more efficient than the best of the tracks dominating the attention for Bang Bang Rock & Roll. As "Direct Hit" proves shortly thereafter, it was no mistake. The band is leaner, meaner, hungrier and more streamlined than ever before. It's the sound of a band that knows exactly where it comes from and knows exactly how to pay homage. The payoff is both stupidly obvious and brilliantly rewarding.

Unlike so many other UK sophomore albums that just didn't live up to the admittedly unreasonable expectations of their debuts (The Futureheads, Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, ad infinitum), Art Brut deserve to beat the rap precisely because their strategy is so simplistic, so utterly inane: By debuting with only the wit of Argos and the generic three-chord riffs you know you've heard a million times before, there's really nowhere to go but up from that, isn't there? It's hard to write songs less challenging than "Emily Kane." So Art Brut aren't really taking a step down from their lauded debut, and they're certainly not giving up on their cheeky sense of humor. They are stepping sideways, because they will always be stepping sideways. It's what they deserve to do.

"What else can we do when the kids don't like it?" asks Argos on "St. Pauli." The obvious answer is to start making songs that require some thought beyond the most banal of the listener's understandings... But that would be defeating the point. Art Brut are specifically designed as a band that takes as few chances as possible (some horns on "Late Sunday Evening" aside) and for that they will always succeed simply because it would be tough to fail. Repeating yourself is expected. Any derivation will look good. And while their epiphany-like live shows continue to sound better and better, the albums improve in sound quality, the riffs get more obvious, the vocal melodies continue to elude you... Yet there you are, stupidly nodding along. Laughing and giggling and dancing and pumping your fist. Why? Because Art Brut are rock n' roll. They and the ideal are one in the same. A hard pill to swallow for high-minded music fans maybe, but a joy and a delight to the rest of us that get it because we don't have to get it. Nobody is playing the crowd better than Art Brut. As the impresarios of average, it's possible they may be the last great rock band. Funny or frightening? As ever, the choice is up to your ears.