Criminal Records – 24th November 2023
Christopher Nosnibor
Regular readers – and fans of Argonaut – will have probably observed that we’ve been pretty consistent in plugging their open-ended album-in-progress Songs from the Black Hat, which has seen the li-fi DIY indie act self-release a song a month via BandCamp. But October’s tune is today getting an official release on a real label – namely Criminal Records, home of The Kut, with whom they’ve released two previous albums.
Nathan explains the band’s methodology for the album’s continual evolution this: “At band practices we each write song titles on slips of paper & put them in the hat. One is then picked at random. We jam around that title & see what alchemy occurs. Most times the magic flows & the combined band chemistry creates something we are really pleased with.”
With two previous albums on Criminal Records, Argonaut’s newest release is produced by Jack Ashley of Popes Of Chillitown, and mastered by The Kut who was drummer/producer on Argonaut’s self-titled debut.
I still can’t hear the world ‘vulnerable’ without thinking of Nathan Barley and an image of David Bowie pissing into a Dualit toaster, but perhaps, particularly since the pandemic and our government’s shameful treatment of the poor and the disabled, I’ve become significantly more sensitive to the way in which vulnerability can be life-shaping, and rarely in a positive way.
Whereas perhaps even in the not so distant past, vulnerability was perceived as being synonymous with weakness, a great many of us understand that it is a fundamental facet of the human condition, and recognise that almost everyone is vulnerable in some way at some time or another. This may not be true of the right-wing tossers who scoff at showing vulnerability – or sensitivity to it – as being ‘soft’ and ‘woke’, but anyone who is a reasonable human being can empathise with how circumstance and life events can place strain on an individual, and just as we’re getting to a place where we can talk about mental health without being stigmatised, so we appreciate that to show vulnerability in fact requires strength in a way we didn’t not so long ago.
The fact that ‘we’ are the vulnerables – all of us – is the crux of the song’s lyrics, along with the painful truth that others will exploit vulnerability for their own ends:.
We are the vulnerables
And we are being used
We are the vulnerables
Me and you and you and me and you
Because it’s Argonaut, it’s a natty tune in the classic indie / alternative style: Lorna’s vocals are sweet and ultra-poppy and there’s both jangle and bounce to the instrumentation – but Nathan can’t resist bringing blasts of fizzy, fuzzy distorted guitar. It all stacks up to a superbly catchy indie pop tune from a band who have quite a catalogue to catchy indie pop tunes to their credit, and no doubt plenty more to come.
AA
Aural Aggravation 