An otherwise dreary Friday morning was spruced up by the news that the indie ever-presents “Two Door Cinema Club” were back. Billed as headliners for two of the UK’s fastest growing festivals, ‘Truck’ and ‘Y Not’, fans no doubt will have been expecting new music. After all, ‘Gameshow’ was nearly two and a half years ago.
An album which produced mixed impressions, ‘Gameshow’ didn’t reach the heights of ‘Beacon’ and ‘Tourist History’ in my opinion – yet what it lacked in memorability, it made up for in vision. Their first two albums were undeniably important works in the history of British indie music: never will you be allowed to attend an indie themed club night without hearing “What You Know”- it’s just not possible. And to think, how many bands would have been influenced by their, then, new wave of guitar driven ‘radio-pop’? ‘Gameshow’, however, marked a transition period.
“Bad Decisions”, without a doubt one of my favourite songs of all time, was unthinkably different to anything Two Door had produced before. It oozed with funk, panache, and ultimately bravery. How many bands ‘drop off’ when releasing the tricky third album? You can’t churn out the same sounds forever, but you run the risk of alienating your fan-base? Who’d be in a band. Yet Two Door set the scene for a change of sound, embracing the electronic, seizing the synths – and although the album didn’t go down as their greatest ever work, the fact it didn’t flop alone would surely have contributed into them being propelled into the indie elites.
Fast forward from the release of ‘Gameshow’ to Friday 22ndMarch 2019, and we have “Talk“. Funky, cheeky, feel-good: a floor filler in the making. With a chorus reminiscent of The Killers’- “The Man”- you can almost feel yourself bouncing along with a hypothetical audience as you listen. It’s largely a tight track – it’s sharp, it’s suave, it’s skinny suits and sunglasses, with a succulent bass hook that leaves you begging for more. My only real critique of this track would be surrounding the middle eight: it feels lazy. While it serves well and builds a buzz before the final chorus, it’s repetitive nature doesn’t fit well in a song that’s otherwise so exciting to listen to. Then again, why does electronic indie-pop need to be complicated to be good? It’s too mediocre for my liking, and I’d like to have seen something better crafted after almost 3 years without releasing music. However, all things said, this song is exciting for what it represents: Two Door are back and beaming.
Initially, I thought how much ‘Gameshow’ would have been improved with the addition of this single – it certainly wouldn’t have been out of place. However, exciting times lay ahead. Long gone are the days of ‘Tourist History’, the ‘Made in Chelsea’ soundtracks of ‘Beacon’ (sorry): “Talk” sets the scene for a new, funk-laden, festival headlining, era of Two Door.
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