I remember seeing the Manchester band Nine Black Alps for the first time a decade ago, as they were having a gig at the Satellite. I think it was still called Spaceland at the time, and the band had totally impressed the crowd, me included, playing their grunge-pop-rock songs with layers and layers of guitars and melodies sung by Sam Forrest’s commanding voice. In particular they had that ‘Cosmopolitan’ song, a very catchy one, with momentum and a pure punk energy and also ‘Get Your Guns’, a louder one, bright and grunge at the same time with some Cobain-esque yelling at the end. The most impressive part of the show may have been the last part, when Forrest destroyed his guitar, the way punk rockers often do, and it was a very nihilist move for a band who found their name in a Sylvia Plath’s poem. They were at the verge of becoming famous, they totally could have, but they sort of disappeared from my radar.
Effectively, since the release of their album ‘Everything Is’ in 2005, I hadn’t heard much about Nine Black Alps. However they have just released their fifth (yes fifth!) album 2 months ago, ‘Candy for the Clowns’, teaming again with producer Rob Schnapf (Foo Fighters, Beck, Elliott Smith) who had produced their debut album in 2005. And may be this is why I hear about them again, and I just stumbled on their video for their next single ‘Come Back Around’ that you can watch below. They still look like kids and once again the loud guitars are super melodic and the tune filled with a hooky chorus that may stick in your head a few days. They have tamed down a bit the punk-grunge side and have stayed on the fuzz-power-pop side, but I just wonder why these guys never got bigger with hooks like these. There are plenty of famous bands who have made a career with that fun feel-good sound,…
Well, may be there’s an answer: ‘We don’t really fit in anywhere’, said Sam Forrest in a recent Drowned in Sound interview. ‘We’re not trendy and gobshitey enough for the NME, not intelligent enough for the Pitchfork types and also not tattooed enough for the Kerrang! and Rock Sound crowd.’… ‘A lot of rock bands at the moment are very triumphant’, he continued, ‘especially in the post-emo era. “We can do this, we can be together.” That whole struggle in the face of adversity kind of thing. We’ve never had that sort of heroic element. I don’t really like heroic songs apart from ‘Hero’ by Chad Kroeger!’
I hear you Sam Forrest! I talked to him once, and he is a very cool guy. Alt-rock, post-grunge, whatever you call them, they are here to stay as they very short Facebook biography seems to tell us: ‘Nine Black Alps exist’, yeah, deal with that!
