I’ve been a fan of Collars since the came to my attention with their 2021 single Over You, their fourth single. With each single since, they have piqued my interest more and more, honing their sound and creating a series of indispensable and compelling releases in the process. I’d been crying out for an album full of these addictive songs, so when I received the email with the forthcoming album, Clyde, attached I downloaded it at breakneck speed with an irascibly skittish exhilaration. Well, as speedily as my aging laptop would allow at least…
I’ll come back to that stirring and vivacious music shortly. Do you know what else I love about Collars? It is their whole aesthetic of the band, their artwork, the videos, the colourfulness of everything. Sometimes you get bands that don’t seem to put any effort into their whole package. Granted, the music is what’s important, but when you get bands that don’t seem to have put any thought into anything else, it kind of turns me off a bit. How much do they really care about what they are doing?
Collars is Dan (vocals and synth) and Kane (guitars AND drums – simultaneously) and as duo, they have covered all bases and thought about that whole experience. They’ve not rushed out an album with no thought. They’ve gigged tirelessly, released singles, perfecting their art, so that now they are presenting us with Clyde, it is an accomplished and cohesively riveting listen. I love everything about this band and their music. I live in hope of a live Glasgow date….
The music on Clyde (surely the album title alone deserves that Glasgow date) moves from oblique guitar/synth driven edgy indie anthems, through short punky vignettes to slow burning moody epics, Dan knows how to write an affecting lyric, but also turns her hand to a bit of light hearted fun too. Two cases in point for this light-hearted humour are on the two brief punky vignettes mentioned, the greasy spoon based The Argument (Martin) and about a geezer selling Argos pens in John’s Mate Dan.
The album opens with one of those synth/guitar driven indie anthems, No Desires breaks ground with a compelling urgency propelling along at a fair lick, with Dan’s distinctive warm vocal soaring into the ether with her inspirational chorus “life is for the living” atop a jangly guitar line. You picks up the baton from the opening track creating a powerfully formidable opening salvo.
What is, in my mind, one of the years biggest sounding singles follows The Argument. The refrain in Rabbit Heart is huge, picking up from the understated intensity of the verses, its expansive effervescence creating an empyrean sound filling your eardrums and working its way into the corners of your psyche.
Rainbows follows and from its opening immediately adds to the feel-good factor with its upbeat poppy vibes, and its message of loving yourself before anyone else. A message that can never be repeated too many times… These Tears are Not For You follows with gently lush guitar riffs and a melody that sits somewhere between 1960s jangle pop and the torch songs of Amy Winehouse. If you’re familiar with Collars, the single Baby I’m Bored will be a welcome sound, the urgency of the song ensuring the listener is anything but bored.
Loaded brings the pace down a bit, it is a bit of a soulful slow burner that smoulders and and builds in intensity to an energetically bounteous conclusion.
It must be an age thing, I remember Christmas being best in the 1970’s, The Futureheads sang about Christmas being better in the 80’s, and now Collars are wishing it could be Christmas in the 90s… “things were so much better then” all in our own ways reminiscing about times gone by, reflecting on change and how it’s not always for the best, Collars bemoaning the loss of the Hacienda, raves, the gentrification of our cities, and a lack of fair pay… Ultimately though, this isn’t a Christmas song, it’s a love song to youth, a reflection of when we were all younger and more naive, and weren’t brought down by the woes of the world.
The album closes in heartachingly beautiful acoustic style with the line “we’re all lonely people, just old abandoned souls” perhaps paying tribute to The Beatles, before Dan urges us to “hold on”, “until you find another one to lead you though the world…”
This album is destined to be a long term fixture on the Ginger Quiff’s vintage iPod, and on my turntable when the vinyl arrives.