There’s no doubt that the Ou Est Le Swimming Pool’s debut album ‘The Golden Year’ is over shadowed by the tragic suicide of the lead singer Charles Haddon, but what a great tribute to him by realising it.
Already riding on the success of three singles they have now made a name for themselves as one of the year’s hot new bands, for them it really has been a ‘Golden year’- musically that is. With their 80’s synth style and deep infectious lyrics that are both captivating and body moving.
Their debut hit single ‘Dance the way you feel’ released in 2009, gave reticence to a MGMT sound, with a confident first outing the hype began for their album, and finally it’s here.
I can’t say that all the tracks excite me, as the three excellent previously released tracks gave optimism that the rest of the album would hold the same upbeat tone, it doesn’t. Such tracks as ‘Our Lives’ is rather monotone, as well as ‘Outside’ it’s as if they wrote it after Charles’s death; but it’s Haddon’s cool cutting vocal ability that still shines through, if only vaguely, to make them listenable and some of the lyrics bring a haunting reflection on the death of Charles Haddon ‘feeling like the dead, I’m feeling torn’ from the track ‘Next to Nothing’. The Golden Year is a fair effort and is full of ideas & promise, but in terms of quality, is often very uneven & seemingly forced.
It’s hard to contemplate if the band will continue without their key band member, but let us hope out of tragedy things will only get better for the Londoners.
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