The London band’s deeply self-aware debut is worthy of being taken seriously even when it’s not serious.
The Elvis Presley costume Asha Lorenz wears in the video for Sorry’s “Rock ’n’ Roll Star” is closer to a last-minute Halloween costume than a genuine impersonator. Dancing and skipping through rainy streets, Lorenz exudes the same combination of sarcasm, silliness, and begrudging cool that runs through her band’s debut album, 925. Though they’re barely famous yet, Sorry act like they’re already over it. The London band’s sound is omnivorous but austere, absorbing elements of post-punk, pop, and jazz into a tongue-in-cheek, deeply self-aware update on indie rock. Few new rock bands seek to telegraph their most cliché ambitions so clearly—they aren’t even the first to call a song “Rock ’n’ Roll Star”—but few bands are as ambitious as Sorry.
Lorenz met Louis O’Bryen, the band’s co-founder, guitarist, and sometime vocalist, when they attended the same private school in central London. They formed Sorry (original name: Fish) with three additional live band members in 2016 and gained attention at events put on by the south London collective Slow Dance, an early supporter of futuristic prog rockers black midi. After releasing a string of woozy alt-rock songs on Domino, Lorenz and O’Bryen opted out of university to spend time honing their sound. The result is 925, an album Lorenz says is named after the percentage of precious metal in sterling silver (92.5). There’s room for other interpretations, too: the most obvious is “9 to 5,” the type of job Sorry have so far managed to avoid.
The album is full of these slippery double entendres and onomatopoeic puns, like the howl-at-the-moon guitar on “Wolf.” On “Ode to Boy,” Lorenz’s self-conscious rhymes of “baby” with “maybe” are pitched up into a literal baby voice. Sorry don’t hesitate to add their own irreverent slant to familiar pop music tropes: the obstinately catchy opening track “Right Round the Clock” interpolates Tears for Fears’ “Mad World,” while “As the Sun Sets” twists Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” into a nightmarish inversion. In a listless tone, Lorenz sings about running into an ex with someone new. What a wonderful world for them, she seems to say, as she sarcastically riffs on Armstrong’s timeless chorus.
Lorenz’s nakedly honest voice, often uncomfortably close in the mix, is the most arresting and consistent feature of a chaotic record full of zany sound effects and saxophone riffs. The sparse, eerie “Snakes” showcases her prowling lower register, while the closing track—a polished-up rework of Sorry’s first single, “Lies”—hinges on her brittle performance, including a devastating half-laugh as she rips apart the line, “I make lies like we should be together.” But she’s just as good when she’s being silly, heaving “eurgh” on the strutting chorus of “Starstruck” or echoing O’Bryen’s vocal line by shrieking “a boy!” on the otherwise sweet and straightforward “Heather.”
925 is a strange and searing debut, worthy of being taken seriously even when it’s not serious. Occasionally, the band’s sardonic send-up of rock clichés overshoots and winds up sounding grating: “I want drugs and drugs and drugs and drugs,” insists “More.” Their parodic humor can feel like a defense mechanism, a strategy to hold the listener at arm’s length. But powerful songs like “Starstruck,” “Wolf,” and the delicate ’90s-style grunge duet “Perfect” lift the curtain to reveal genuinely inventive songwriting. On 925, Sorry lovingly poke fun at themselves and at rock history—but they also prove they’ve got the talent to go further than their gags.
View the original article here
0 comments:
Post a Comment