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We Were Promised Jetpacks - BIO

 

Following closely in the footsteps of The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit, We Were Promised Jetpacks are yet another hugely talented young scottish band added to the FatCat roster. The 4-piece came to our attention when listening to some of the friends on the Frightened Rabbit Myspace page. Though recent months has seen the band tour the UK with their aforementioned friends, the four preceding years have consisted of local gigs in and around Glasgow and Edinburgh, allowing WWPJ to find their sound and hone their live performance.

Assembled in Edinburgh as high school friends in 2003, their first ever gig saw them winning their school's battle of the bands competition. Proceeding shows were after school performances around the city of Edinburgh which were well attended and fuelled the band with a hunger and ambition. If the nascent WWPJ aural template embraced light-footed compositions – few effects pedals, traditional song structures, clear-cut guitars - succeeding years have seen WWPJ soar aural heights and mine emotional depths in every sense: the band you will encounter now are a cacophonous tour de force: louder, wilder, avidly literate; fiercely melodic, yet eagerly restrained. Lyrics and vocal melodies come courtesy of Adam Thompson, everything else arises from the full group; Adam Thompson (Guitar/Vocals), Michael Palmer (Guitar), Sean Smith (Bass) and Darren Lackie (Drums).

Before even releasing a single, WWPJ have laid claim to some recent successes which bode well for the future of the band. A well recorded three-track demo was circulated and managed to pick up a KEXP track of the day over the pond, and plays on national stations in the UK were popping up on XFM, BBC and Q radio. Before the announcement of WWPJ signing to FatCat Records, a strong hint was sitting on the shelves across the UK in the form of inclusion on a recent FatCat sampler, mounted onto Plan B magazine.

A tour through September 2008 as main support for Frightened Rabbit garnered some great reviews for WWPJ. This being their first jaunt into England, healthy crowds arrived early on each evening due to the huge buzz in Scotland now filtering down south of the border. You could loosely pin some reference points onto WWPJ; the vocals reminiscent of Morrisy or Paul Banks (Interpol), clever guitar interplay similar to something you'd hear on a Billy Mahonie track, dynamically you could compare them to Mogwai, and generally Futureheads/Hot Club De Paris/Postcard/Fire Engine are all good markers.

Having received amazing critical support for ‘These Four Walls' and two already-released singles from the album (‘Quiet Little Voices' and ‘Roll Up Your Sleeves'), as well as some high profile festival sets and an ecstatically-received main support set at Frightened Rabbit's Scala show in London in April '09, the year has already been a busy one for We Were Promised Jetpacks.

The band will embark on a US tour with labelmates Frightened Rabbit, Brakes and The Twilight Sad in autumn, shortly before a month-long set of UK dates.

 

'These Four Walls' CD

 

Opening with a lone guitar line that itself has all the momentum of entire genres crammed into a single set of chords, We Were Promised Jetpacks' ‘These Four Walls' signifies a debut album that has the sort of peerlessness and potential to stand as a mainstay and luminary of indie music in the 21st century.

We Were Promised Jetpacks are their own band, by anyone's reckoning, but are noticeably informed and inspired by the sorts of musical movements that one moves to and is moved by in equal measure. As vocalist Adam Thompson's soon-to-be-classic Scottish lilt appears over the huge, full band instrumentation, the last four decades' worth of underground musical innovation are all thrown into the sonic space with a flawless assimilation: the jolting, carefree vigour and the backing chorus vocals of 70's post-punk (e.g. Gang of Four); the intricate and eloquent songcrafting and musicianship of 80's UK pop (of Kate Bush, Talk Talk etc.); the skewed jarr and inimitable coolness of 90's Western Pacific indie (of Steven Malkmus, The Shins etc.); the modernist, electrifying thrill of the last ten years of British indie. There is even the guitar-driven gravity and concurrently melodious and powerful impact of Explosions In The Sky or Mogwai and a Johnny Marr-esque sparkle to the lead guitar lines. Futureheads/Hot Club De Paris/Postcard/Fire Engines are similarly effective markers.

The band's youthful energy (their average age is 21) explodes thunderously as colossal choruses fall unfailingly into place. Every space is filled, tension bristling achingly in Thompson's vocal delivery as the rest of the band crashes around him with a perfect balance of force and harmony. The romanticism and accessibility of a pure pop sensibility is never hidden too deep. Both ‘Roll Up Your Sleeves' and lead-off single ‘Quiet Little Voices' capture this beautifully, immediately. The product of Ken Thomas' (Sigur Ros, Cocteau Twins, David Bowie etc.) studio mastery and Peter Katis' (Frightened Rabbit, The Twilight Sad, The National etc.) mixing, the recording of ‘These Four Walls' was almost entirely live, with only minimal overdubs, and the band members' collected passion and intuition is translated into a pure, precise form, at once powerful and delicate.

Never willing to overuse a melody, the precision and ability of We Were Promised Jetpacks' songwriting is often most clearly evident in their song structures: intertwining, serpentine, effortlessly stirring, dynamic and intuitive. Even the album's quietest moments (see the Jesus And Mary Chain guitar tones and electronica-braced, icy sprawl of ‘A Half-Built House.' or the patient orchestration of ‘Keeping Warm.') are just as enveloping, just as deafening as the enthralling indie that pulses thrillingly through its loudest crescendos.


Assembled in Edinburgh as high school friends in 2003, We Were Promised Jetpacks' first ever gig saw them winning their school's battle of the bands competition. Proceeding shows were after-school performances around the city of Edinburgh which were well attended and fuelled the band with a hunger and ambition. The 4-piece came to FatCat's attention when listening to some of the friends on the Frightened Rabbit Myspace page. Before even releasing a single, WWPJ have laid claim to some recent successes which suggest the heralding of a major talent bursting to emerge. A well recorded three-track demo was circulated and managed to pick up a KEXP track of the day over the pond, and plays on national stations in the UK were popping up on XFM, BBC and Q radio.

A tour through September 2008 as main support for Frightened Rabbit garnered some great reviews for WWPJ. This being their first jaunt into England, healthy crowds arrived early on each evening due to the huge buzz in Scotland now filtering down south of the border. Already WWPJ have been reviewed by NME, featured as Q's Track of the Day and been played on Zane Lowe to great acclaim.

With an album scheduled for June 2009, the forthcoming year of releases and touring is set to be a busy one for We Were Promised Jetpacks.

 

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