Last year, prolific workaholic producer Dan Carey was rewarded for his overtime with two Mercury Prize nominations helping to ignite the careers of two British new bloods: Kate Tempest and Nick Mulvey. His next challenge is to repeat the same feit with All We Are. Although, geographically, none of them are British - Guko Gikling is Norwegian, Luis Santos is Brazilan and drummer Richard O Flynn is self-explanatory Irish-  they formalized and call Liverpool their musical home and inhabit a sound that could easily pass off as having an modern day English indie influence.

 

The lo-fi celestial nature of The XX and London Grammar walks non-chalantly throughout their debut LP so evidently that it's incredibly difficult not to compare them. It doesn't help that they are also trio with occasionally simulteanous three-part harmonies. Although it's paired with soft guitars reminescent of Coldplay on Go and Wye Oak keyboard disorientation on Ebb/Flow.

 

When All We Are flowed into the blogsophere with long length and purposely absorbing introductory singles Keep Me Alive and Stay Safe, they look they had the required ingredients of a contemporary indie outfit. Starring in music videos that contain their stylistically semi-motionless bodies with blank expressions matched with their lips being their only operating mechanisms, it looked like they've been copying too many Bloc Party promotionals. At the risk of sounding oxymoronic, it's the subtleness and laid back air of confidence, that dominates their style from the videos to their recordings.

 

At no point during their steady drumming, controlled guitar-arrangement and soft vocalizing do they go crazy and start shouting the place down. It would be out of their character but it's at the expense of album that lacks surprise, memorable excitement and personality. Whilst it imitates The XX, the fact the London trio preceded them unfortunately takes away the unique factor that could have been beneficial (Go and Stone are the best examples) .

 

The irony is that All We Are have dubbed themselves the "Bee Gees on Diazepam", a drug that's prescribed for insomnia-  and their music does occasionally incite a nauseaing feeling after a while, especially during it's most restless moments and once the style becomes predictable and tiresome.

 

On the plus side, it's not completely unoriginal and has it's charms. The Brazilian heritage of guitarist Luis Santos adds a fuzzy and tropical nature to his guitar compositions (Feel Safe) but it's still subtle, so it fits their design structure. Although, you can't help whether he could have pushed that a little further and it's surprising that producer Dan Carey, didn't move that into an eccentric whirlwind of worldbeat that sparked his collaboration with Yeasayer.

 

The album is also directional and blends together nicely as an album whilst the additional elements of funk rock which brings Santos's vocalse into a Prince meets Rick James's edge (Honey) make it things a little more diverse. Furthermore, Utmost Good brings out a melody that is attractively similar to the aforementioned BeeGees, although it's again so faint, it has a wasted potential that could have had a fun vibe.

 

Despite hailing from three different continents- if we count Norway as a sub-continent- it's fascinating how the trio's vocals are symbolic of sibling unity that is a kin to The Magic Numbers (especially on  and this is their strongest asset that doesn't need immediate development.

 

Their songwriting is also intriguingly nihilistic at the beginning on Ebb/Flow: "it breeds, it decays into nothing," which unfortunately describes their lyrical content on the rest of the album as it fails to maintain interest or hold a consistent theme.

 

This only their debut and is a good measurement for their room for improvement. Their potential is there and once they let go of their immitational laid back and non chalant aura, they can be more daring and fearless. MTH

 

Best Tracks: Keep Me Alive, Stay Safe and Honey