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FEATURE
MUSIC
MUSIC
Thick As Thieves
by The
Temper Trap is out June 10 via
Liberation.
the gorgeous
Riverina
), and more detailed,
introspective tracks towards its tail such as
What If I’mWrong
and the delicate beauty
Tombstone
. The latter's dynamic touches
are completely unexpected (particularly for
such a songtitle), and its lyrics are delivered
in an almost half-spoken style. “It’s not me!”
Mandagi exclaims triumphantly of those vocals.
“It’s Johnny [Aherne, bass guitarist]. I attempted
it, but I always wanted Johnny to sing it. But the
labels were like, ‘What if it’s a single, and then
it’s the first single, and that’s Johnny? People
are going to get confused, so you should sing
it,’ and I sang it. It sounded like dogsh-t. If it ain’t
broke, don’t fix it.”
Another which sits in the middle of the
album’s divide is
Summer’s Almost Gone
, which
is filled with enchanting keys and an awesome,
THE COVER CUBS
Y
ou might think the album
cover’s striking image –
two children in hairy animal
masks with their little claws
up and bared, which seems
to fit so perfectly with the
album’s title – was artificially
set up. “We went through all
this trouble of doing all these
photo shoots of the band,
‘cause we wanted to come
back with us on the cover:
this isTemperTrap, bang,
we’re back!” Mandagi says.
“Then during a meeting one
day we were looking for an
image for the single
Thick As
Thieves
, and I said ‘Johnny
has an Instagram photo that
he took years ago in Hackney,
of these kids wearing
wolf masks, and I think
that would be amazing.’
I showed Steve, the
Art Director, and he
said ‘Can that be your
album cover?’” “I think
it was Halloween and these
kids were running around,”
Greer adds. “Apparently when
he asked them ‘Can I take a
photo of you?’ they didn’t say
anything, they just nodded
with the masks on.”
sudden slide into a romantic half-time beat
near the end, with choral voices. “It was
probably one of the first songs that we
worked on, and it was just Dougy with an
acoustic guitar,” says Greer. “We had this
person re-create a mellotron, but it’s new
– it’s like a digital version but by the same
creator as the original. But to be honest,
quite often it happens that the most basic
thing you come up with is the sound you
want to use. When you try and recreate it,
it doesn’t have the same character. You can
do so much with so little.” Mendagi agrees:
“Sometimes you get into the studio with
producers and whatnot, and people are
all about using vintage gear and this and
that. You end up plugging in and you play
the guitar and you go, GarageBand sounds
better.” The choral effect did involve a weird
contraption that emitted frequencies based
on which random knob you decided to
press or turn. “You just record heaps of
samples of f-cking around with the thing,”
Greer laughs. “We trigger it live,” Mendagi
says. Greer laments that it doesn’t look
very dramatic on-stage, and Mendagi
suggests a confetti cannon every time a
knob is touched. It’s a spectacular idea, but
not something The Temper Trap need to
invoke its effects –
Thick As Thieves
will do
that on its own.
TheTemper Trap:
Joseph Greer, Dougy
Mandagi,Toby Dundas,
and Jonathon Aherne
I sang it; it sounded
like dogsh-t. If it ain't
broke, don't fix it