I had absolutely no intentions of doing this. If you scroll through my blog, you’ll see just how much I focus on music from the 80’s, mainly Alternative and Post-punk artists like Adam Ant and Gary Numan. Truth of the matter is, I hate most artists and songs of late because they’re hypersexualized, repetitive and meaningless. The only artists from the past decade that have really peaked my interest are JoJo Siwa, Billie Eilish and The 1975; the latter of which being one of the most important bands to me and my life. They’ve also just released their fourth album – ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’ – which I have been waiting for impatiently since I ordered it last September. In February I finally managed to see them live after waiting so long, and you can read my concert review by clicking here. But after waiting for this album for over half a year, being so excited when the CD finally dropped through my letterbox, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed at the end of the first listen.

I just want to preface what you’re about to read by saying a few things: I have been in love with this band since I was 13 years old. I have closely followed them and had my life bettered because of them. What you’re about to read are the honest and unfiltered initial thoughts of a die hard fan, which are more than likely subject to change after more repeated listens. These are also my personal opinions on the album so before any stans attack me, please consider that. Finally, art is subjective so what I hate, you might love. Consider that too please. But if you haven’t been turned off by my disclaimer and are still here, I hope you enjoy reading my thoughts and feelings.

It’s Time To Rebel.

The first real snippet we had of this song was its grand opening statement, a 4 minute instrumental accompanied by activist Greta Thunburg reading a speech about how we need to rebel and start doing something to save our planet. This is the first track on the album, which then launched into ‘People’, which is a throwback to their earlier Drive Like I Do days in it’s aggressive punk sound. As somebody who loves artists like Marilyn Manson, The Cure and Gary Numan, this song hit all the right notes for me. The second I heard it, it immediately became my favourite song by them. It was like this pop band I have admired for 6 years was finally speaking my language.

I go way more in depth into my thoughts, feelings and love of the single in the analysis I did of it way back when, so please do check it out by clicking here to read that. But this song following on from the new incarnation of ‘The 1975’ was perfect as it takes the album immediately from something calm to aggressive, it truly wakes you up and catches you off guard while proving how The 1975 are such a versatile band, as well as continuing the call to arms that Thunburg started in the first track, albeit in their own way. ‘People’ got me so excited for the album, and I said to my fellow The 1975 friends that I hope there’s more songs like this on the album, in the same musical style. In a way that’s true, but at the same time it isn’t. But after I heard the album for the first time, I couldn’t help but feel like they hit their peak on the record at the second song in.

A Night Time Record

While announcing this album way too early prior to it’s release, lead singer Matty Healy also threw about the idea – maybe even a promise? – that the album would be “a night time record”. This also made me excited and eager to hear it because as much as I like my darker and aggressive music, there are times where I sit up in my feels and just want something softer, chilled and relaxing. A night time record sounded perfect for that, and I think the first time we really got a hint of that was in the single ‘Frail State Of Mind’. It was much calmer, longer and sounded more experimental in a different way to ‘People’. It was also a much more personal track, which later singles like ‘The Birthday Party’, ‘Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America’ and ‘Guys’ would also follow, but they hold a much more acoustic sound rather than the glitchy, electronic sound of ‘Frail State Of Mind’.

I love electronic and experimental music, which is probably my go-to music as a lover of 80’s New Wave. If done the right way it can really help me unwind and feel more relaxed. Acoustic music, though not my favourite, is far more emotional than overproduced tracks with so many layers and so much going on. Sometimes sweet and simple is all you need. So as you can guess, these singles really hit the spot for me, particularly ‘Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America’. I didn’t expect to like it at first and expected to find it a bore, but instead it became one of my top singles from the album. It’s a bisexual anthem and Phoebe Bridger’s vocals are a very welcome addition to the song and album.

But when I listened to the album, this sentiment was delivered, but not to the extent I would have liked it. Going into it I knew it was 80 minutes in runtime, 22 tracks in total and between the 8 singles we’d got, I would say there were 4 different and distinctive sounds going on. But across the 22 tracks as a whole, the first thing that really came across to me was how disjointed and messy the album was in terms of genres of the tracks and its flow. Immediately following the albums opening statement of the first two tracks, we get a short orchestral piece that immediately threw me off. It just doesn’t sound right for an orchestra to follow on from something as aggressive as ‘People’, and personally I would have called that the closing track of the album. It just comes about way too early in the track listing. Imagine a segue from the ending of ‘Guys’ fading into ‘The End (Music For Cars)’, it would just add to the emotion and beauty of this closing statement from the band.

In terms of the whole night time thing I’m so caught up on, like I said, it was partially delivered. There’s a few tracks on the album that I would say continue the same glitchy/electronic vibe of ‘Frail State Of Mind’, those being: ‘Yeah I Know’, ‘I Think There’s Something You Should Know’, ‘Tonight (I Wish I Was Your Boy)’, ‘Shiny Collarbone’, ‘Having No Head’, ‘What Should I Say’ and ‘Bagsy Not In Net’. The latter one is confusing in itself because as much as the meaning of the song is sweet, the sound of the track clashed a lot for me as it tries to bring together an orchestra with electronics which was again really jarring for me upon first listen. ‘Shiny Collarbone’ is also an interesting one, because as much as I love the music of it, the vocals have a huge Reggae feeling to them and I don’t know if I personally think the two go together that well.

A Double Album

In my opinion, only 8 of the 22 songs here fit the sound and feeling of what I would call a night time album, which leaves a lot of tracks cut to the sideline. You could throw in the acoustic songs like ‘The Birthday Party’ into the mix, but when I heard this album it felt like I wasn’t listening to one cohesive piece that flows well. Maybe that was their intention, to throw you off and surprise you as you listen, and knowing Matty that wouldn’t surprise me. But what this album really feels like is not one, but two forced together. We have the chilled side with stuff like ‘Frail State’ and ‘Having No Head’ which really work well together. Then you have the rest of the songs that cross so many different genres: ‘People’ is punk; ‘Me & You Together Song’ is Britpop; ‘Roadkill’ is Country and an entirely different story in it’s own right due to the F slur controversy; and there’s a lot of orchestral songs on the album too.

It’s all over the place. It feels like two albums shoved together as the result of a factory working way too much and overproducing. Rather than having 15 tracks like their last, we get so many more songs which left me thinking “do you really contribute anything to this album overall?”. Even listening to my personal favourite songs from the album a few hours after I heard it left me thinking “is it just me or does this song go on for too long?”. There’s even some more emotional and deeper songs on the album, like the closing tracks ‘Don’t Worry’ and ‘Guys’. I don’t want to take away their meanings from other fans or Healy himself, but I haven’t connected with them at all and I’m one of the soppiest and emotional people you could ever meet- ask any of my friends. But I sat and thought about it a little bit, and it just seems like this band is getting bigger and bigger. Which is great of course, and seeing them become international superstars is great. It’s true, this band is one of the most unique and interesting on the planet right now. Except it feels like they don’t know when to stop.

Retrospective

There’s a few moments on this album that feel like true The 1975, the one that I fell in love with. My mutual friend who loves them too said how he misses the days of ‘Girls’ and ‘Chocolate’, and I said to him how I think that the closest that we’re getting to that on this album is ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’. Also notice how a lot of the songs I’m mentioning repeatedly are the ones they released as singles, food for thought maybe? But from the first time that ‘Too Shy’ was played, it went down a storm and seeing the live video of it on Twitter the first night it was played made me so emotional. It felt like my band were back, doing what they do best, making Indie music with sexual undertones. Hell, they even threw in a saxophone solo! But honestly, it’s the only song of its kind on the album. But one song I haven’t mentioned yet and want to quickly is ‘Nothing Revealed/Everything Denied’, which is one of my favourites and has seemingly gone down well with the fans too. But the reason I’m mentioning it is because it really harks back to the song ‘If I Believe You’ on their second album, as well as having a chorus that really hit hard and fucked me up.

But the fact there’s so many songs on the album that aren’t caught up in sounding like the past albums they have put up is really great, but only to an extent. It shows the band isn’t looking back in terms of their sound. They’re constantly moving forward both sonically and visually, and on this album they explore so many different genres and have so many songs of different styles. But that’s the problem for me, there’s just so many. Maybe a few too many, and they’re organised in a way that really doesn’t sit well with me. This album flows nowhere near as well as ‘The 1975’ or ‘I Like It When You Sleep’, where everything feels like it was placed perfectly and goes seamlessly from one song to the next. But on this, the songs end too abruptly and harsh. There isn’t really any flow and god, it really was so off putting.

But one thing that does work well for me, which is one of the few parts of the album I’m obsessed with, is the fact that they did look back in their own ways. In an interview with Pitchfork, Healy said that the band was “going through the DNA of who we were” to make the album, making references to genres they grew up with. This can all be heard, really clearly, in songs like ‘People’ and ‘Frail State Of Mind’ because the influence of the genres they grew up with – Emo-core and House Music – really shine through on the album. But then it gets to some songs and it just left me wondering, “why are you here?” and “why is this genre of music suddenly here?”. It’s such a disjointed album, but there is such a strong core at the middle of it. It’s just a shame it’s surrounded by so many other songs, one that has already caused an uproar. Matty honey, you really need to learn when to be quiet. I love you, you really have inspired me, but you can be problematic sometimes… maybe that’s what the song ‘What Should I Say’ is about?

There Is Hope

I had the same kind of feeling about ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’ when it first came out. So before the stans get in my DM’s saying I’ve slagged off their best album, please stop right there. At the time of ‘A Brief Inquiry’ being released, I only liked the singles and maybe one or two songs on the album. I didn’t have an emotional connection to the last two songs on it until I saw the band play them live, and sometimes you need that real life emotional connection that isn’t through a screen or a CD player. Sometimes you have to live and experience things for them to really leave an impact. And like I say, I didn’t like their last album at all and that came out two years ago. It wasn’t until I finally saw them live and sat with the album after that when I realised that I do actually like the album. A lot.

I know we’re in the middle of something terrible which has hindered concerts for some time, so it will be a while before any of us are back on the concert circuit, meaning I won’t be able to connect with these new songs for a while. But that leaves me with a lot of time on my hands, to listen to this album over and over again. To take each song in and hopefully truly fall in love with it. I’m not calling this album perfect, their best, flawless. Far from it. There are a few songs I enjoy but on first listen, I felt disappointed and put off. But maybe this time in a few years I’ll be able to put out a quick message saying “I am finally as in love with ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’ as everybody else”.

Click below to read some of my other album reviews:

Modern Guilt / Telekon / The Dreamboys EP / MassEducation / Jubilee Demos / Autobahn