Chief among those influences are Gang of Four, the iconic Leeds post-punk band with whom JJ Sterry - vocalist and half of Rear Window - fronted from 2012 to 2020.
The imprint of that band is always legible: the sharp rhythm section of ‘Head Above Water’ echoes Gang of Four’s ‘I Love a Man in Uniform’, and its even sharper lyrics similarly reveal a bleak, repressive England, where once Thatcher and now a new government keep people “hanging by a thread”. Sterry’s speak-singing is, like that of original GO4 frontman Jon King, loaded with cynical wit, and is just as concerned with incisive political commentary as it is angular phrasing; it is an instrument unto itself, as much a component of the slinky grooves as the bassline or guitar parts.
But Sterry and Santi Arribas, producer and the other half of Rear Window, have not just made a Gang of Four tribute album. ‘Happiness by Design’ excites because it does not simply carry the staple ingredients of its influences, but the pushing-forward of songcraft which made bands such as Gang of Four, Wire, and Au Pairs so brilliant in the first place. Rear Window have moved away from the clipped and terse foundations of post-punk and into more melodic territory, allowing them to breathe life into the genre and turn songs into longer, emotional pieces. ‘Give My Regards’ is lyrically rich, almost forlorn in the picture it paints: “Give my regards to Broadway / Think of me on the million-dollar stairs / I know I said in a little while / Just promise that you won’t wait for me there.” There is an air of abandoned glitz that hovers over this album, as if you are listening to the Pet Shop Boys from outside a club, the rain pouring down on the roadside. To make the point, the album closes with a pared-back cover of ‘Suspicious Minds’, the opposite of the Pet Shop Boys’ sparkling maximalist rendition. This is the perfect closer for a record which is always caught between the retro and the current.
This duality works in the album’s favour, allowing Arribas to contrast nostalgic and contemporary production styles. A personal highlight is ‘Rocket Men’, a New Order-style synth ballad with added digital sheen. The detached wisdom of lines such as "Ones and zeros / You fell in love with binary code / Now you can’t see the nose on your face / Too close and things pixelate" is made funnier, made sadder by the glossy production. Sterry is concerned with a special kind of melancholy which comes from not being able to identify what is making you sad, because everything is lost in the stream of digital information, of binary code; Arribas responds with production which mixes the synthetic and analogue, blurring the boundaries between them. But the analogue elements, such as the bossa drums on ‘Running Away’ or the acoustic guitars on ‘The Eleventh Hour’, mean that the album is compulsively relistenable. Melancholy never drowns the listener, and Sterry is bleakly funny - lines like "Say I’d invented a time machine / I bet you’d see it as a get-rich-quick scheme" give the songs a surprising warmth.
It is music made with serious things in mind, but without too much self-seriousness. Listeners of the classic bands who inspire Rear Window will be intrigued, but because it is so deceptively fun, ‘Happiness by Design’ will also enchant newcomers.
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