There’s various touchstones that appear to have influences Londoners One Eyed Wayne over the course of their debut album Attack of the Luxury Flats, which is out tomorrow (November 28th) on limited CD and download. There’s Faces and a general sense of Mod about it, there’s the gritty real life poetry of Ian Dury, but with more of the Fall than the funk about it, and a general feeling that if (only) two tone were still releasing records, then One Eyed Wayne would be sat proudly amongst their roster.
Title track Attack of the Luxury Flats opens the album, and it’s a real taster of whats to come, with Steve Donoghue and Simon Dickinson’s dual vocals lines, as they mix up this modish, stripped back verse with this perfect indie pop chorus, all flavoured with their sharp, perceptive look at life. Follow on 1 2 3 4 see’s a more post punk(ish) delivery, albeit piano laden and with the delivery of Suggs (with just enough Mark E Smith to keep worried) in the vocals, while Wakey Wakey is goofy, swirling indie-pop.
Elsewhere the brilliant melodies of tear up are only matched by the off the wall love song that it appears to be, while previous single Various Artists is as near to Madness as One Eyed Wayne will ever come I suspect, draped in these vaudevillian pianos as they are, while LSD (no, not that – Loving, Singing Dancing) has this rather brilliant rockabilly (well, of sorts) feel about it.
After the Break shows (again) that Jason Williamson does have some competition as the people’s poet, although musically it’s not as strong as some of the albums tracks, but album closer What in a Moment more than redeems it, and brings the album to a fitting ending.
One Eyed Wayne might not fit into the sound 2016, but there’s more than enough in Attack of the Luxury Flats – funny, biting lyrics and pulsating mod-indie pop songs for us to ignore 2016 and dive in anyway.
