Dancing About Architecture
With a name like Working Class Husseys, I was expecting some sort of full-on, rock and roll mayhem but what I am (initially) faced with was quite a sweet and soulful, almost pop delivery. And whilst I am musing on the idea of judging books by covers, or at least bands by their monikers, raw guitar attacks kick in adding some wonderful edge and energy. The result is a song that wanders from gentle pop territory to anthemic Americana, taking in alt-rock grooves and southern-fried moves along the way.
Elaine is a wonderfully nostalgic piece, a reflection on childhood and changing urban landscapes, of the freedoms of youth and, although this is perhaps a bit of a leap of sonic faith, the difference between the wildness and liberty of those days and the conformity and complacency of the modern age.
It’s also a song that not only keeps you interested through the narrative it weaves but sonically engaged through its slow-burning, constantly building ways, the song adding additional tones and textures, mass harmonies, rock guitar salvos and brass stabs as it heads for its final destination.
If alt-rock seems to have fallen into a bit of a self-referential spiral of late, a place where the rules seem to be set and universally followed, then Working Class Hussys are the modern Pied Pipers whose tunes offer the chance for that genre to journey to a better future.