The Pigeon Detectives – Broken Glances
Say what you want about The Pigeon Detectives but they’ve stuck at it. The Leeds five-piece’s career after their platinum selling debut album Wait For Me has been one of diminishing returns as the derivative mid-2000s indie bubble burst and many of their contemporaries dropped off. Now on Broken Glances, their first record in four years, the former barons of bloke rock find themselves in a more reflective mood, if still struggling to find a sound of their own.
In Richard Formby, who graced records like Ghostpoet’s Some Say I So I Say Light, the band have found a producer that seems to have challenged them more than before. Broken Glances certainly sounds more eclectic for it with the ruminative opening track Wolves challenging preconceptions of what a Pigeon Detectives record should sound like. Unfortunately that is followed by Lose Control, a bassy indie-dance track which wouldn’t have sounded out of place in the practice mode on FIFA a decade ago.
There are some pleasant surprises on Broken Glances, such as the floaty six-minute track Munro which touches on War on Drugs territory, the sparse piano ballad Falling in Love, or the unexpected eruption of Postcards. The problem is that however many hats Broken Glances tries on, it’s hard to shake the sense that The Pigeon Detectives still don’t have much about them that hasn’t been done better by someone else before. ‘Oh, baby, I guess that you’re just like all the rest,’ Bowman sings on Lose Control. Sadly we’re inclined to agree.
Listen to: Munro, Sounding the Alarm, Postcards