September 4, 2007

The Enemy

You’re Not Alone

Photo Gallery: The Enemy

There will always be people who hate them, of course, because they shout and rage and do not affect a heroin-befogged pallor. This, though, is the moment that even the most steadfast of Enemy enemies is forced to admit that, yeah, OK, they have got just a little something about them.
It seems frankly incredible that they would ever manage to out-anthem ‘Away From Here’, but they’ve managed it with this juggernaut-with-its-brakes-cut-thundering-down-a-hill show-stopper of a song. It manages to distil into its glorious entirety echoes of U2’s better bits, The Jam, The Teardrop Explodes and Echo & The Bunnymen,
while sounding like none of the above.

The only possible criticism of is that calling a modern relationship an “empire” is not the most romantic of sentiments, calling to mind the image of Darth Vader trying to persuade his missus to give it another go. But the chorus is pure anthem-making in excelsis. In fact, it’s no coincidence that, by the time it thunders into the last of its 223 seconds, Tom Clarke has been reduced into bellowing his lyrics as nothing more than vague approximations of the words, buoyed by the knowledge that he is putting the seal on something epochal.

However magnificent ‘Away From Here’ is, this one’s going to be their ‘I Am The Resurrection’. The way that the whole thing keeps ballooning and ladling on the volume until you’re waiting for a sound system implosion that never arrives. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, 2007 has just received the song that will level the indie clubs, the Radio 1 roadshows and the provincial hippodromes alike. It’s all over bar the shouting, and there will be much of that.

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