GUMS! release debut Album Temps!

TEMPS the debut album from Glaswegian DIY Pop band GUMS! is OUT NOW! It is available as a pay-what-you-like download at gums.bandcamp.com and through all the usual digital channels.

Function-suite romantics GUMS! are the project of veteran Glasgow songwriter Martin J. Smith. Over his two decades in music, Smith has built a reputation on mining the mundane and the miserable for unexpected gems of wistful pop. On TEMPS, Smith’s trademark literary flair and narrative focus are given room to be breathe over 12 tracks of essential indie.

Smith explains “With TEMPS I wanted to tell a story over a period of time. I focussed on the story of a relationship over the course of 15 years, the songwriting style and arrangement shift over the course of the album to highlight the passage of time and a growing sense of alienation"

Early tracks such as You Held Me and Not One Day More use frantic indie-pop and doo-wop to tell giddy tales of teenage romance, while later tracks such as the disco-tinged We Used To Run Around and the bombastic album-closer You Are Everything embrace a wider range of sonic styles as they explore darker themes of isolation, ageing and regret.

The GUMS! sound is built around the interplay between the three vocalists, Nora Noonan’s casual, poppy tones providing the perfect counter-point to Smith’s “Scottish Leonard Cohen” delivery, with the intricate guitar work and soaring vocal melodies of Jack Taylor elevating the choruses to Teenage Fanclub-esque proportions.

Although the styles on display are wide-ranging, the sense of lyrical urgency and loss at core of the song-writing ensures that the tracks always complement each other, creating a series of inter-linked vignettes chronicling everyday life and love in Central Scotland. Raw and poignant in equal measure and sonically equally influenced by Eels, Kirsty MacColl and Pulp.

This article has been viewed 14086 times