THE PATTERN

immediately

12”/CD, Wichita

What’s wrong with five young man taking up guitars and drums and blasting out a bunch of dynamic rock-tunes? Nothing, except that there are too few of those. The Pattern are loud, noisy and streetwise, but at the same time definitely retro, and therefore should fit perfectly in the current trend of the Sixties-gone-Nineties-rock-music-revival.

This Mini-Lp was safely hidden in the “new”-bin in my favourite record store. I had no clue, so I listened to it (that is always a good tip, you never know what you might find) and they blew me outta my boots right away. “Immediately” has the fresh energy of a debut, were there is still the feeling of “this might be the one time” in the band, so they pump out the energy without much ado. It also has the feeling of “the time is now” and so they pump all their dreams and energy and force into this time, to make it really last and feel good. Check the title for further corroboration. “We are so in trouble” screams the singer on “finger us”, but I am not sure what he is talking about. Can’t be this record? Maybe if the people they are still owing money to find out they’ve become “rock stars” or if their parents find out they are still hanging out with their “bad friends”? Anyway, this half a dozen songs have all the raunchiness and rowdiness of a gang of young men, who’ve been friends for a long time and started to jam it out now. Maybe these six songs are all the creativity they could manage, and the first full length album, if it ever comes, will be a collection of endless repetitions and extremely boring to listen to. Usually, the first full-length record (and the third) are the main points, that decide if a band has real talent or not. But we ain’t that far yet. (Actually I am still going strong on by prejudice, that “immediately” is their debut, though I really don’t know and have no proof. Well, I don’t care. It feels like a debut.)

On further inspection I saw that this record carries a tag that says released in 2001, but I guess it usually takes that long for good stuff to make it here. And then some time for me to tell you about it. But good music is timeless, anyway. And even a good hype lasts longer than a few months. Hype, I said? Well, yes, because this one fits splendidly into the current hype around The Strokes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and others, you know who. A trend that I am very happy about, actually, because I can never get enough of the sound of a Les Paul charged through a bigass-amp and young man in tight jeans pounding the nice melodies out of their tunes. The Pattern are also on the same label as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which might explain a thing or two. First, maybe this label specializes in uninhibited, reckless rock’n’roll and second, my record store ordered a bunch of records from them for the first time, and that is why this is such a late comer. But hey, I am glad it came.

05/2002