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Album Details

• Artist: Working For A Nuclear Free City
• Album: Businessmen & Ghosts
• Label: Deaf, Dumb & Blind
• Year of Release: 2007
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: mschmitt on 2007-11-19

Ever wake up in the morning, take one sniff of the atmosphere, and know it will storm that day? Does it ever make you feel good? Working for a Nuclear Free City makes me feel good in that way, as I quietly enjoy the ominous aroma before a full-out downpour. Businessmen and Ghosts is the Manchester four-some’s third release since their formation around 2004—and is either the flickering display of lightning on the horizon or the commanding roar of thunder that unleashes a downpour. I like the prefer the former, if only because that means even more impressive material is on the way. A double album, Businessmen & Ghosts is split into the “official” album Businessmen, and a collection of B-sides, outtakes, and various other tracks that didn’t quite make the cut over the years in Ghosts. I’ll break it up therefore, but both albums should be enjoyed together.

Businessmen, and indeed Working for a Nuclear Free City themselves, is an album of diversity. Read any review coming out about these boys, and that’s the first and foremost thing critics like to drool over. There’s electronica (“All American Taste”), dance-floor grooves (“Apron Strings”), alt-rock riffs (“Quiet Place,” first half), acoustic licks (“Sarah Dreams of Summer”), noise rock chaos (“Quiet Place,” second half), and all of them combined in some sonic soup here (“Forever”). Surprisingly – or not, considering the group’s title – there are also very profound outcries of political and social distress to be found among the lyrics.

From the very outset in “224th Day” the zoney instrumentals impart a profound sense that all is not right, supported by claims in “Troubled Son” that the narrator is “losing all instinct” and “burning down governments.” Meanwhile in “Dead Fingers Talking,” all us normal folk as ignorantly asking, “what’s on the TV?” while there are certain “dead fingers talking” (but we’re not listening) and a “Barefoot boy walking.” And, in case you still don’t get it, “Kingdom” beats the listener over the head with political unrest, with the narrator claiming that he has “no power in the kingdom.” Furthermore, he demands “some answers / I don't know how we find freedom,” before accusing an unseen oppressor: “Your wisdom / Your Kingdom.” Finally though, he only wants someone to “show me anything!” All of this happens just beneath the surface of a sensual display of killer melodic and emotional sweeps, in a way that’s not fully electronic but not without it’s digital bells and whistles.

“Rocket” is by far the stand-out track from Businessmen however, delivering scathing ironies alongside blisteringly catchy, yet ever subtle Radiohead-esque instrumentals. Here we find the vocalist declaring to a naturally disillusioned audience: “If you feel unclean better bleach your body / If you're feelin' hate better kill somebody / If you're feelin' old better leave your body / If you want to leave better build a rocket.” In short, there’s a superficial and quick solution for everything. Don’t like yourself? Get a face-lift. Feel stressed and angry? Take it out on others. Don’t like life, or the others around you? There are ways out—whether it be suicide or interplanetary travel. In a sense: deal with the surface of the problem, without digging out the roots—without finding the cause. Perhaps this is a critique of our self-gratification driven world, or simply universal frustration—but it is a chilling undertone to an ambient track.

There are other gems here as well, without all the deep sociological mumbo-jumbo. “Sarah Dreams of Summer” is one of the before-mentioned genre oddities of Working for a Nuclear Free City, a blissful acoustic track alluding to the daydream quality of natural and environmental beauty, I guess inside Sarah’s head. “So” and “England” both serve up very engaging electronic beats, with “All American Taste” sounding a bit like Kid A era Radiohead. Finally, “Over” lures you in with an afterglow-like instrumental atmosphere – like the calm after a storm or a cigarette after scandalous bed aerobics – before rousing you for one more go in “Forever,” which combines most if not all of the genre experimentation Working for a Nuclear Free City has unleashed upon the listener in some primeval sonic fight to the death which ends in the album’s climactic finish. In sum, Businessmen truly is an aerobic work-out for your musical taste buds…and of a less scandalous nature, perhaps.

Ghosts, on the other hand, is purely electronic and ambient. Here dwell tracks that are perhaps more unfocused or clean-shaven than those in Businessmen, but if you’ve enjoyed the ride so far (or enjoy Radiohead or Explosions in the Sky) you won’t want to exit just yet. The album kicks off with a testament to the chaos that is Pretty Girls Make Graves, infused with a bit of “Knights of Cydonia” Muse, that evolves into a dance-floor groove. Some highlights also include “Innocence,” a Matrix-like electronic mix that could appear on any high-octane movie soundtrack. “Heaven Kissing Hill” is a somber break-stop, perhaps to smell the proverbial sonic roses, before moving into a sweet emotional instrumental track that borders on post-rock Explosions in the Sky territory in “The Tape.” It goes on, with more electronic mixes and post-rock instrumentals, with B-sides that would make a pretty damn good album if ordered correctly and dotted with some of Businessmen’s more exhilarating tracks. Still, these are B-sides and treading through the 14 tracks is tiresome. But, coming from a band like Working for a Nuclear Free City, this double-album release is a God-send. More bands should do this, that is, provide more track-bang for our buck. It gives an interesting view into what the band is doing in studio that we may otherwise never get to experience.

In sum though, get this album. If you’ve liked Radiohead’s electronic sides, Explosions in the Sky’s more ambient work (like that excludes any of their songs), or any sort of genre-bending electronic/instrumental/shoegaze/post-rock/alternative experimentalists—get this album. Working for a Nuclear Free City is prepping for their storm, and it will be severe. So sniff the air, and sample what’s coming—enjoy it. Best to be prepared.

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