The Chap – Well Done Europe

The Chap - Well Done Europe

Taking up pretty much where 2008′s Mega Breakfast left off Well Done Europe successfully continues the evolution of The Chap‘s own particular folktronica/indie/pop hybrid. Clocking in at just under the three quarter hour mark, the London/Berlin-based quintet have once more expertly crafted a set of a dozen songs that sit somewhere between ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’ and ‘You Will Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties’ in the compendium of British left-field songwriting.

Criminally they’ll probably get more plays on Radio Two than Radio One but then that itself is a reflection of the underlying intelligence behind their ouevre. ‘We Work In Bars’ effortlessly captures the frustration of having to hold down a job outside of music yet at the same time displays the enjoyment felt at having more than one band through which to develop one’s talent and make contact with the world.

‘Gimme Legs’ takes us down the woozily drunken road between nicely drunk and that point when bitter memories come to the surface after that one beverage that tips you over the edge into darker territory. ‘Well Done You’ delivers one of the best back-handed compliments heard on record for a while, although alternatively it could be that it’s the entirely honest account of one member letting the side down for a short time.

Lighter moments of relief are though there for the listener in the shape of ‘Even Your Friend’, a spiky-tuned tale of an almost-but-not-quite love entanglement, the burly (by their standards) ‘Maroccan [sic] Nights’ with its jaunty guitar jangle and thumping, and ‘Ant Music’-esque drums, which powers along at a nice clip to great effect. There’s also the initially slow-burning ‘Pain Fan’, wherein the band initially sound like a holiday has forced them into Mogadon addiction but liven themselves up for the choruses to the extent that you feel it can’t have been too bad a fortnight, wherever it is they’re back from. Especially not if it contributed to this body of work.

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