Locksley: Be In Love

Locksley's first album, "Don't Make Me Wait," took me by surprise in 2009. Here was a band I'd heard nothing about, but whose look intrigued me into sampling a few tracks. And when I decided I liked all of them, I bought the album and found even more pleasure. So it was preordained when they announced their second album for 2010 that I was going to buy it. It was possible my expectations were going to get too high, but after months upon months of listening, I realized this was a better CD. they had refined their sound from a rough, British Invasion throwback into something that takes everything that worked about the past and points it at the future. It's retro without being an imitation. It's current without being contrived. This was my third favourite album of 2010.

As with most great albums, the title seems to say it all: be young, be excited, Be In Love. The album is so in-the-moment, so electrifying and so clear in its desire to get your feet tapping and head bobbing, the rest of the world seems to melt away. At first examination, Locksley's approach to rock seems incredibly basic, even naive, until you realize no band seems to actually sound like this. This is what we call the British Invasion sound, the Beatlemania sound: dance club worthy rock that isn't leaden down by angst or blues. Oh, it isn't an immaturely optimistic record by any means (its subtleties won't hit you until well after the songs have absorbed you) but it's so smart about its complications that you barely even notice where the efforts were made. That's the trick: it seems so natural and so easy, but if it were, you'd hear more like it. You don't. Not in 2010. Maybe not ever.

They come to the party with a nearly endless supply of hooks and melodies. Sometimes they arch, like on "Love You Too" or flow like the gorgeous sentimental "Days of Youth." Probably my favourite is "Darling, It's True," whose triple-ringing riff carries a rhythm of its own and underscores the pleading lyrics without making them seem cloying. This is sharp songcraft.

Freed from the desire to be dazzlingly different on every track (and thus risk running out of ideas,) Locksley creates a batch of songs that never lose their energy, drag or become tiresome. There just enough difference between the tracks, though, to ensure that every one offers its own unique pleasure. After two or three listens you might find yourself singing along without realizing you'd remembered the lyrics. Partly it's that they're good at making music that feels physical, that seems to interact with the listener. A lot of songs feature non-lexical "Oh-ohs" and "Yeah-yeahs," notably the almost parodic "The Whip," which tells a story of impatience and jealousy wrapped up in an irresistible hook, or "On Fire," which breaks free of the pop constraints of the rest of the album and lets you really feel the flames of anguish.

There's a ton of call-and-response here, which adds with the dueling guitars and snappy choruses to make you feel like the band is presenting a unified front, making music that really incorporates all of them. At least three of the four members take vocal duties (I can't tell whether the drummer ever sings or what, but Jesse, Jordan and Kai all have distinct voices that interplay all over it.) One of the best is the back and forth on the nervous "It Isn't Love," or the turn-taking blues of "The World Isn't Waiting." But whenever one of them, most notably Jesse Laz (whose voice is most recognizable on "On Fire," "Darling It's True" and "21st Century") steps to the front, he takes command. Laz has one of the great rock voices of this generation, unpolished yet melodic, like he's channeling young John Lennon. Each vocalist brings something different, though, and the band varies on the theme so extraordinarily well.

The songwriting is strong, too. Though they're always singing about love (or maturity,) it's never in an easy, uncomplicated way. It feels like they stand in the aftermath of young heartbreaks trying to reach back to those days of youth when it was easier, knowing what they know now.

So yeah, here's a band that knows the ins and outs of how to record great rock and roll. I know that, due to the way the market is, this isn't the kind of CD that's going to smash the charts in 2010, but it offers those most necessary of pleasures. It gets in touch with the raw primal desire that motivates kids to pick up guitars generation after generation, and it molds it into something better than I've heard in a long time. Music like this is fairly easily dismissed in critical circles, but you've gotta respect not only the heart and energy that goes into making it, but the effect it produces at that place inside you that remembers what it feels like just to rock. Be in love with this record tonight.

Buy this album (now simply titled "Locksley") on iTunes now!



Locksley's Be In Love is the second installment of my Favourite of 2010 list, after #4, Broken Social Scene's Forgiveness Rock Record. Though I'm not huge into ratings and rankings, I do enjoy collecting up a small group of albums and telling you "Here's what I really liked in 2010."