Art Brut: Riding With the Devil

Flashback to 2005: indie minnows Art Brut release debut album Bang Bang Rock & Roll, the highlight of which is Formed a Band, a shaky two-minute-odd punk rampage over the top of which the group's singer reveals his dream to write the song "that makes Israel and Palestine get along". Fast-forward to 2009 and Eddie Argos, Art Brut's frontman, hasn't quite managed to solve the conflict in the Middle East just yet; however, his band did manage to secure Frank Black as producer of their third album on a rare outing for the ex-Pixies singer behind the mixing desk.

Having had at least four years’ practice in the music business, has Argos developed a rock star nonchalance about dealing with such big names? Far from it. "When we first arrived for the recordings I was a bit intimidated… ‘cause he's Frank Black."

The surreal nature of the meeting only served to heighten Argos’s anxiety. Black picked the band up at the airport in his own car, and an offer to let the awestruck Londoner take it for a spin nearly had disastrous consequences. "I can't even drive," admits Argos, "but I nearly said ‘yeah’."

Despite their singer remaining the resolutely unsmooth hero who made early Art Brut tracks such as Emily Kane (the paean to a lost childhood sweetheart) so engaging, Art Brut have in fact reached a point in their career which, while it isn’t exactly a maturation, signals a movement towards refocusing their ramshackle sound.

The offspring of their, by all accounts, very enjoyable musical coupling with Black ("it was brilliant... he's such a friendly, nice man"), third album Art Brut vs Satan  takes all of the raw energy and scattershot brilliance of the band's earliest work and refocuses it, heightening the impact of the record’s eleven tracks. On this album, the London-based quintet has become confident enough to be able to record live, which Argos partly credits Black for. He describes how "loads of the album is first takes, because he just went for it and pressed record. I always thought albums were made like this, I thought bands just went in, played their songs and then left.”

According to Argos, while sessions for sophomore sideways move It's A Bit Complicated and their critically acclaimed debut were bedevilled by overproduction and time constraints respectively, "it was much better this time... this is the way you should do it: go in, record your songs, then leave".

It's ironic, then, that Art Brut vs Satan, the result of this spontaneous process, is such a fully realised album, one which appears at its heart to have a loose lyrical theme. It’s the idea that, while Argos's aural alter ego is still raising hell and getting himself into a range of comic everyday scrapes, the age of responsibility is approaching fast.

The album is bookended by two of its most effective songs. The invigorating opener (and first single) Alcoholics Unanimous is a wry, peppy look at the onset of a drink problem. The LP finishes with the astonishing Mysterious Bruises, a seven-and-a-half-minute epic with a  lonely, raw guitar figure circling wearily around Argos's dazed and miserable reflections on the morning after with an effect that’s – dare I say it – deeply moving.

But while the record deals with the pathetic side to acting younger than one’s age, its more upbeat songs extol the virtues of a love of the simple things, such as on DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake ("some things will always be great/even though I'm twenty-eight"). "I do buy and read comics quite a lot, and for a while I was quite shy about it,” admits Argos, “but about a year ago I was like 'Oh, fuck it!’”

The same resurgent confidence applies to his band, and there’s a sense that Art Brut's newfound confidence is augmented by an us-against-the-world mentality, epitomised by the album’s title. "The rest of the bands we came up with have either split up or become massively famous. We are pretty much out by ourselves now," says Argos. "I'm quite a strong-headed person, I don't mind. We've got friends in bands, it's just that we're doing a very different thing."

The question remains then as to how a band like Art Brut have always puttered along on a more or less even keel towards their third album when so many of their contemporaries have either exploded, or imploded. "I've been in bands since I was 15," says Argos simply. "I can't imagine why I would stop. Even if no one buys the record, I'm still going to be doing it. I like it."

Frank Black has bigger ambitions for the group though: in an interview with Pitchfork, he describes how his aim going into the recording was to make rock ’n’ roll history. Argos isn’t sure. "In a band, I think you do want to believe everything you're doing is rock ’n’ roll history – although I know it's not, I'm not going to admit that!" he replies with remarkable candour.

So have Art Brut matured over the course of the last four years? Will their subtle change in direction see them amass ranks of serious-minded Coldplay fans as followers and collaborators in their crusade against Satan? According to Argos, the battle has already been won – over a ouija board. "Since then, I've broken 3 pairs of trousers," he marvels. "If all he can do is break my trousers, I'm gonna be all right. Bring it on." Those who dread a ‘serious’ Art Brut don’t have to worry. Despite the accomplished new album, Eddie Argos is leading the charge against common sense, holding his trousers up around his waist as he goes.