Album Review: The Tings Tings – ‘Songs from Nowheresville’

The electric, acid tongued, audible artisans known as the Tings Tings return with ‘Songs from Nowheresville’, their much anticipated follow up to 2008 global smash ‘We Started Nothing’.

The dynamic duo of beatsmith Jules de Martino and the all singing, all shouting Katie White have spent a lot of their time over the last four year buried away, recording their follow up in a Berlin jazz club. The story goes that a visit by over eager record executives spooked the band into deleting their entire album and starting again. What followed was no repeat of Guns N’ Roses and the fifteen years it took them to finish Chinese Democracy but instead symbolic of the non-conformist nature of the Tings Tings, all instinct and attitude, they weren’t happy – that was it, and, with the surprising support of the record company the band set about remolding this sophomore record.

So what’s it like? Well the group have in some ways delivered yet another ‘oracular spectacular’ for their follow up. It was never going to be an easy task to surpass the first album’s ten razor sharp tracks, a record that dominated airwaves, clubs and karaoke bars, but they have instead created a bold album that moves their sound forward rather than slavishly replicating their debut.

Right from the beginning there is an air of maturity within the albums diversity, opening track ‘Silence’ openly nodding to Depeche Mode and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, leading through to the more hip-hop stylings of ‘Hit me Down Sonny.’

Recent single ‘Hang it Up ‘quickly follows, a foot stomping, tub thumper of a tune, perfectly encapsulating everything we know and love about them into a nitrous injected three minutes of punk-pop that evens sees the usually silent
Jules expertly step up to the mic. The ‘Madness’ Ska stylings of ‘Soul Killing’ is a further feather in their alternative cap, whilst the slow burning ‘Day by Day’ will almost certainly be emanating out every car stereo this summer, a guaranteed radio favourite.

Guggenheim is their bravest song, half punk, half musical number, an Oliver Twisted story of resentment rising to a explosive chorus of militaristic beats and Katie’s unique vocals, draped in their usual angry ensemble.

Whilst it is far to say that ‘Nowheresville’ doesn’t have as many infectiously instant songs, the album still has plenty to fill a dancefloor, tracks such as ‘One by One’ and previous single ‘Hands’, accompanied by a number of mixes on the album should still see this holding pride of place on many a summer party playlist.

The album is however very much a mixed bag, the large number of remixes only serving to further disjoint the feel across a somewhat overly generously collection of nineteen tracks.

Songs from Nowheresville, is a collection of primal melodic aggression liberally spread over a smorgasbord of musical genres, cleverly woven into a record that really does, despite its fault stand out from the other mainstream acts today.

Whilst they aren’t quite on the long train to nowheresville just yet, the Tings Tings hit machine has been slightly derailed in favour of a more expressive, experimental album. The one thing they desire though still remains, no one quite sounds like the Tings Tings.

By James Stapleton
@realjstapleton