British India Guillotine by: Steve Scully Mon:16-Jul-07 Label: Flashpoint Year: 2007 WB rating 50 out of 100

Simplicity in art is something that the 20th century held dear, from the absurdity of Arp’s basic, seemingly random sculptures to Warhol’s pop-art pieces, the everyday, the minimal, is upheld as art in its purest and most accessible form. In modern music, the rock ‘n’ roll band is the simplest outfit on show; power chords, screaming vocals and pounding drums appeal to the masses, and appease the ears of many radio-listening folk.

British India is a rock band, pure and simple. On rock albums like this, bands have to work harder than most to avoid mediocrity. If this can’t be done musically – traditional, generic ‘rock’ style pervades Guillotine – there has to be a little bit of character injected into their portfolio. Attitude is one way to get this little X factor: through strong lyrical content, a band whose music is nothing more than average can become more effective. On Guillotine, soaring, catchy choruses are interspersed with hooks, solos, angry vocals, references to adolescent rebellion and post-adolescent sexual promiscuity, with an ever-so-delightful touch of light-hearted misogyny. The music fits the fist-pumping, pub-rock paradigm like a square peg in a whole of similar dimensions, but the lyrics are perhaps the most accessible part of the equation. Their message is raw, their music even more so, and this can either appeal or repulse, while most songs are about self-worth and teen angst, some show British India playing with an even straighter bat – see ‘Council Flat’s’ opening lines, “Last night I slept in a stranger’s bed/ I think I’ll do it again.”

‘Black and White Radio’ is a pleasant-enough homage to early Faith No More punk-inspired adrenaline rock. It may not be a lyrical masterpiece, but it opens the album on an ear-splitting note. “You make friends with ugly people/So you’ll stand out in the crowd,” Declan Melia sings, as guitars scream around him. Lines such as this inject the album with a tongue-in-cheek element that so many modern power-ballad spouting bands are incapable of understanding. Later on, Melia adopts a blunter, heavy-handed approach, jibing “when fashion talks you listen” (‘Edgy Looking Clothes’), and condemns kids who try to emulate those in fashion magazines (‘Automatic Pulse’). For a band whose elements are so simplistic, there’s something confusing here, they seem intelligent. Surely this can’t all be a parody, can it?

‘Run the Red Light’ is almost 80’s New Wave, but breaks into a soaring Springsteen chorus, the ease with which they break into the call to rebellion is admirable, and surely this song will become a hit with the frustrated teens, who will gather in packs, fake ID’s in-hand to any gig these guys play. Guillotine is packed with similar sentiments: “I can show you how to win at Russian roulette,” Melia claims in the album’s fifth track, ‘Russian Roulette’, “pull the trigger,” the profound solution he offers.

In ‘Teenage Mother’, there’s a Stone Temple Pilots edge to the grungy, distorted guitar that’s blunted by the rather dodgy lyrical theme: “you’d look good as a teenage mother.” Again, there’s a sense of fun that underlies these messages. Songs that could be understood as addressing suicide and teen pregnancy are sung with such glee and energy that the possibly-unpleasant feel is lost, and any deeper lyrical effect gone with it. There’s nothing here of Kurt Cobain droning “rape me, my friend,” and nothing that might incite parental uproar, but British India’s sights are set on a certain punter, one who will embrace the band’s sense of uproarious, simple music, and one who will hear the odes to rebellion and teen freedom and feel somewhat liberated.

Guillotine has all the hallmarks of a good rock ‘n’ roll album: every track is as loud as the last, having a little hook here-and-there to keep those of the ADD persuasion relatively interested. If you like to get your blood pumping with a bit of angry, testosterone-filled rock, buy this album. If you want something with ingenuity, subtlety and complexity, steer clear. Guillotine may get your blood pumping, and rile you up, but it has the musical longevity of a burst of adrenaline.