The Others - band and album - are clumsy, annoying, basic and sloppy. And right now, very, very necessary.
If you need to ask why, take a look at the week's other releases, shoved in front of the British public like last night's reheated dinner. There's groaning, grinding pomp-rock (Feeder), self-conscious quirkiness (Lemon Jelly), money-grubbing necrophilia (2Pac) and the latest major label attempt to pickpocket Coldplay fans (Athlete). In this unloveliest of musical weeks, "The Others" is the only record that has a voice of its own, that seems to have been made without a copy of 'Music Week' pinned to the studio wall.
If The Others were eyeing the charts, they would certainly have spruced-up the production a little. The sound aims for the raw physicality of punk, with a touch of Banshees gothica, but is rarely more than workmanlike. A tight rhythm section gives the record a sense of real urgency, but the guitar work is as pedestrian as you might expect from a man called Jimmy Lager.
Although, not as pedestrian as Dominic Masters' lyrics. Masters is an intriguing man, with a bracingly hedonistic point of view and a glorious sense of what makes London the dark, grubby, thrilling city it is, but he is at best a prosaic lyricist, and at worst capable of cack handed couplets like "I know his mother, she's a little witch/ I know his sister now, what a bitch," a rhyme so awful Marc Bolan would have thought twice.
But it's the very amateurishness of "The Others" which makes it the brashest and best British record released so far this year. It's the adrenaline rush of "Lackey", with its glorious "Chicky chicky chikOW!" chorus, it's the fist-raising "William" and it's the unembarrassed anthem of "This Is The Poor". As a dissection of class, it lacks the precision and wit of Noel Gallagher, let alone Jarvis Cocker, but it draws on the same well of anger and righteousness.
And more than anything else, it's the sincerity, which practically leaks from the speakers. This is an album littered with names - "William", "Stan Bowles", "Johan", "Darren, Daniel, Dave" - because it is an album littered with people and friendships, with the memories and dreams of a life lived well. "The Others" is no masterpiece, but it offers up a warm, beating heart where its rivals offer cold, cynical eyes. It deserves your respect.
