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19

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