TV Priest - Uppers Review
From the initial moments of ‘The Big Curve’ to the closing moments of the highlight ‘Saintless’, we are taken through streams of consciousness and unvetted thoughts about the state of our country.
TV Priest have had one of the stranger starts to a career as a band, announcing themselves upon us mid-pandemic, meaning they couldn’t fully immerse themselves in the world of fans and community to which they would undoubtedly be most welcome. They have riffs designed for sweaty rooms and Charlie Drinkwater as pied-piperisms d-d-d-d-d-d-d-designed for the spittle-drenching of everyone in range. In under a year, and into an arguably oversaturated scene, TV Priest have notched up a pretty devout following with something that feels both familiar and exciting. Uppers is certainly one of the more impressive debuts to have emerged from the wider recent punk trend.
Upon sight of the track listing the keener fan would likely be initially aghast by absentees in ‘Runner Up’ and ‘House of York.’ You’d be forgiven for assuming that a band that had been public knowledge for a matter of months had lost the plot. However, you’d be proven wrong in a single playthrough of Uppers which has more than enough meaty grit and gritty meat to keep you angry and frustrated, while crying and laughing at the meaninglessness of our collective white breadism.
We come straight out the gate into ‘The Big Curve’ with a curling guitar line coating a celebration that “this could be the first day of the rest of your life”. We are soon settled into the tone of things to come, as sharp jagged lines flick against each other as Charlie denounces business falsities and the passing of time. ‘Press Gang’ follows in all its chugging glory, taking on the journalists of Fleet Street of generations past and our present relationship with the media. ‘Leg Room’ admonishes celebrities and those that indulge in such trivialities as Cannes Film Festival and James Corden’s CarPool Karaoke. Then it is pretty on the nose that the track ‘Journal of a Plague Year’ comes out in Covid-land, but perhaps surprisingly, was penned in 2019. “The new normal sets in” may be a little more poignant in a year of actual real life plague, but it is a tale of the dystopian reality of the pre-pandemic way of life in all its relentless, racist, power grabbing CAPITAL vampirism.
‘Decoration’ has been described as the peak of the album by some and it certainly is a big tune. With meandering bass and whirring guitar surrounding Drinkwater’s thoughts on the meaninglessness of a Simon Cowell-infested world of avo-on-toast. He chides the symbolic posturers, the point-scoring book readers and tv watchers, the winners of national talent shows and the micro-influencers. Still, he spits d’s and croons of passing “through to the next round” with a growing sense of zombification. From one of the album’s bangers we flow deliciously into another in the form of ‘Slideshow’, which finds Charlie at his most self-deprecating - not that this isn’t a clear motif throughout - as in a chorus nigh on an anthem he laments that “all I can do is talk'' and questions his originality, with a spice of irony in that it’s a rare example of Charlie fully singing, thus proving himself wrong. ‘Slideshow’ shows guitar at its most thunderous, sparking and springing around a charging rhythm. ‘Fathers and Sons’ ends the midsection with an indie punk ankle tapper celebrating empty salutations and endless consumerism.
The album noticeably messes around with pace in its closing triplet, much to its benefit, for what is arguably the strongest section of Uppers. ‘Powers of Ten’ slows to a moody, broody story of a godless priest over scattering drum and screeching guitar. It feels as if all the ramblings and frustrations through Uppers have finally exhausted us: we can no longer poke fun as the hopelessness sets in and when the ladder has firmly snapped up just out of reach, despite repeated attempts to climb, our own godlessness will ultimately see us fall again. In the first single from the album, ‘This Island’, we are served what is probably the most typically TV Priest sound, a scurrying and thumping heartbeat of guitar, with Charlie denouncing hate in all its forms; it clearly has nothing specific to do with Little Englanders or Brexit. A gentle synth flickers behind a wall of noise as the familiar catchphrase “In her day, she knew the postman by name” builds until a refrain “for shame, for shame, for shame” which is just gagging to be shouted back at a stage. The album's pinnacle is ‘Saintless’ though, which shows Charlie’s thus far cloaked vulnerability, a more personal journey through his thoughts on fatherhood and spousal illness. The seven minute epic certifies the arc of the album, via emotional agony, self-doubt and ultimate acceptance of love above all else.
From the initial moments of ‘The Big Curve’ to the closing moments of the highlight ‘Saintless’, we are taken through streams of consciousness and unvetted thoughts about the state of our country, accompanied by punching riffs and the thrashing energy we miss from venue full of people. It’s difficult to stand out in a sub-genre as seemingly standardised and sometimes decorative as alt-punk, but in Uppers we have something that feels fresh, and certainly stands tall, even before it has been played live, which will only amplify its power. With talk of further tracks already being written you can certainly suggest that the quality of Uppers means TV Priest have made it through to the next round.