The Rakes explore futility of modern life on Klang

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      The Rakes
      Klang (V2)

      In their five-year existence, the Rakes have charted (and become style icons) at home in the U.K. but have consistently flown under the radar of most North American rock fans. It’s not that there’s anything quintessentially British about the London quartet’s output. In fact, most of singer Alan Donohoe’s songs should resonate with anyone who toils at a shit job and would rather be just about anywhere else. As Uncut’s John Robinson wryly noted, the Rakes’ first two albums, 2005’s Capture/Release and ’07’s Ten New Messages, “might as well have been called Got Pissed After Work”.

      If those records could be taken as celebrations of the work-drink-fuck-sleep lifestyle at their core, no such illusions are possible when listening to the songs on Klang. Blame the global economic downturn if you will, but these are clearly not odes to the working life; they’re laments about the seeming futility of it all. On “Shackleton” Donohoe announces: “Dear god, I will drink and I will smoke/Like no man before ever has or ever will/Every penny I have slaved for/Gladly blown in one glorious, glorious night.” But there’s a desperation in his voice, as if he’s all too aware of the brutal truth of the song’s refrain: “We’re all pawns in someone else’s business.”

      The young protagonist of “Muller’s Ratchet”, meanwhile, is eager to escape both his chiding father’s employ (“I don’t pay you to be smart,” he’s told) and the old man’s dream-quashing predictions for his future: “You’re gonna end up just like me.”

      And so it goes. It’s all a bit bleak, but that’s not to say that the Rakes have forgotten how to have fun. The Londoners decamped to Berlin to record Klang at what was formerly the East German Government Center for Radio Broadcasting Services. These surroundings inspired “1989”, a catchy reflection on the city 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, with lyrics about, well, getting blitzed with punk rockers and wandering drunkenly through the night. Old habits die hard.

      “That’s the Reason” finds the band bashing through an uptempo firecracker that welds edgy postpunk to an irresistible gang-chant chorus. “The Final Hill”, which closes Klang with a bang, boasts a rock-steady pulse—courtesy of bassist Jamie Hornsmith and drummer Lasse Petersen—that carries with it some brilliantly spiky work by guitarist Matthew Swinnerton. The track sputters to a halt after about two minutes, only to kick back in again for one final, satisfying verse and chorus, which finds Donohoe offering a vague but passionate battle cry: “We’ve been fucked by the institutions/And we ain’t got nothing to lose, man.” It is, to quote another English critic, NME’s Martin Robinson, “smart-minded punk-pop for the proletariat to riot to.” It’s unlikely to spark any actual tumult in the streets, but it could certainly encourage a roomful of punters to resurrect the pogo.

      Download This: “That’s the Reason”

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