The Rakes – Capture/Release (V2 Music) album review

Whose world is this? Bombs explode around London, and while we're arguing the toss about the Olympics and debating the dubious virtues of curfews for the under-16s, the G8 bunch only begrudgingly succeed in addressing the debt relief issue. And when you’re skint - and single, and lost in an anonymous town, looking for a soul you're sure you once possessed - does this matter? Yes it does. Not that you'd know it, listening to Capture/Release: The Rakes, y'see, deal in escapism. "Everything is temporary these days," admits singer Alan Donohoe on tumbling recent single 'Retreat', "Might as well go out for the third night in a row".

A year ago, it would've been easy to write The Rakes off as also-rans, makeweights lost in London's intimidatingly supersaturated live scene. Gigs were scrappy, often running out of steam halfway through, Donohoe's stage persona – think Poundstretcher Ian Curtis – wore thin quickly, and the band seemed in need of both inspiration and motivation. While mildly amusing, even debut single '22 Grand Job' (included here, presumably just to illustrate where the band started musically) was a gauche and rudimentary sop to a music industry ever over-eager to add another spiky/angular/etcetera guitar band to its canon.

But now The Rakes have surprised us. They’ve grown. With Paul Epworth producing – and if the guitar music world is anyone's in 2005, it's his – and a label which actually seems to give a shit footing the bill, they've created a hook-filled, authentic, passion-fuelled and impressively varied debut. On some occasions, Capture/Release is reminiscent of The Jam, had Paul Weller ever bothered to find a sense of humour. On others, it swooshes through the bedroom electropop whimsy of early 80s Cure: 'Terror', especially, nods to the same narcotic beats as that band’s 'The Upstairs Room'.

But the real clincher, the reasons this album reserves to outflank the competition in the hearts, heads and iPods of Britain's youth, are its perfect pacing and irresistible danceability – the latter exemplified by 'T-Bone', guitarist Matthew Swinnerton's lead riff prodding the rhythm into action at its exploding chorus. By the time you reach final track (and new single), the Big Audio Dynamite-infused 'Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep)', The Rakes have dragged you along on their trip. Through the e-fuelled peaks and synapse-fried comedowns of a long weekend, in a London where Mike Skinner's mayor and Pete Doherty is the rightful recipient of an ASBO banning him from going within 500 metres of a musical instrument. "My clothes still smell of last night," sighs Donohoe. I’m not surprised, sunshine – you must be knackered an' all.

Charlie Ivens

originally appeared in The Fly magazine, August 2005 issue