Enemy UK gains fans, not enemies with debut

After more than a year of being clapped on the back by New Musical Express (NME) and the British… After more than a year of being clapped on the back by New Musical Express (NME) and the British listening public, The Enemy is headed to the United States, supported by its debut album. While the group released a previous album of B-sides, its official debut, We’ll Live and Die in These Towns, holds top-10 singles like ‘Away From Here’ and ‘Had Enough.’ The album itself hit No. 1 in the U.K. in its first week of release. Following the normal blend of British musical tastes minting a group acceptable for U.S. consumption, the album has been released, and the band hit Lollapalooza at the beginning of this month. After being declared a chart-smasher by our overseas Anglo-cousins, is The Enemy ours as well? While the group supported the Kaiser Chiefs, The Fratellis and even the mighty Rolling Stones in concert, its sound isn’t as raucous or humorous as any of its headliners. If anything, it’s more of a mild-mannered cross between The Libertines and Oasis. Although it achieves a lot more than The Bravery’s latest album, it travels in that direction of lighter rock that trades in hard riffs for happy claps. Happily, in the end, it’s solid Brit-rock, making aurally pleasing riffs with transparent chord construction. The album opens with a hard-hitting quartet of songs. They’re characterized by familiar driving beats. It’s tough, though, for those non-indie-bots among us to resist shaking with the addictive music. In fact, the music is more danceable than many of the big brother bands to which The Enemy finds itself compared. The power chords bump along, and the drum kit picks up a swinging rhythm. Not every track is a vein of gold ‘mdash; after the first four tracks the album drops to cruising speed, and most tracks resort to punk licks to keep the power flowing. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there isn’t anything beyond astounding about the ground it’s treading while riding The Cure’s horse either. It stays interesting by keeping the speed up and using some distortion, but don’t think of any of the effects on even half the scale of Muse’s. Overall, The Enemy shows its youth by offering a simple album with sparse but well-executed effects. The lyrics are another point of contention. It all sounds good when it’s thumping out of your sub-woofer, but lines like, ‘Do what you like / Say what you mean / Do what you please’ in the chorus of ‘Aggro’ are unfair to curious ears. Similarly, in ‘Had Enough,’ lyrics like, ‘What’s the matter with your face, face?’ sound good when they’re in our headphones, but later lyrics like ‘If you take a look outside / You will see, you’re wrong’ are disappointing. Unlike The Libertines, you won’t find references to James Joyce prose in the tracks by The Enemy, at least on this record. What’s impressive about The Enemy is that the group keeps up the pressure. All the way to the final track, the music has high energy. ‘This Song,’ ‘Happy Birthday Jane’ and ‘Five Years,’ which directly precede ‘Nation,’ are forgettable. But before they get in the way, there are gems like ‘Technodanceaphobic’ and the dirtier sound paired with the obnoxiously penned humor of ’40 Days and 40 Nights.’ While the debut isn’t groundbreaking, it’s exciting to get an album that actually makes up for it with constant energy. With that inertia, The Enemy poses a threat that deserves attention.