The Pale White - Inanimate Objects Of The 21st Century: Album Review

Artwork for the pale white album inanimate objects of the 21st century

4 stars hq

While The Pale White’s predecessor was melancholic and less groove oriented, ‘Inanimate Objects Of The 21st Century’ is warier, a determinedly front foot record for a decidedly back foot era.

Think about it: what if you went away for a while, came back to the spot where you knew you belonged, but while the place felt the same the world didn’t?

This is how Adam and Jack Hope felt when they returned to the north east of England having recorded their first two albums as The Pale White in London and Kent.

While the sights and sounds hadn’t changed, the siblings had an acute sense that everything else around and outside them was now whirling at a disorientating speed.

“Technology is moving but we are not,” Jack says. “Human civilization entered the 21st century wide-eyed and naive with mobile phones that would barely fit in our pockets.”

“Fast forward a few decades and we’re so far from where we were that it almost looks like a bad 80’s sci-fi movie.”

This vicious, dystopian limbo is reflected in the title of their third record. “We’re living in a strange transitional period which is both fascinating and terrifying in equal measure,” he further explains.

“We humans have now in fact become the inanimate objects – mannequins.”

It’s a conclusion that’s hard to argue with, one that informs the harder edges of The Pale White’s newest work.

Whilst its predecessor The Big Sad was melancholic and less groove oriented, Inanimate Objects Of The 21st Century is warier, a determinedly front foot record for a decidedly back foot era.

Working again with local producer John Martindale (Pigs x7, Nimmo), these are songs which for the most part have an alt rock swagger that proves surprisingly hard to resist.

Opener Moth In The Headlights filters Britpop glam with some eyebrow raising lyrical philosophy (‘Questions for the creator’), dragging up memories of ancient psych pop mavericks Red Kross and Urge Overkill in the process.

Things are not always that simple. Göbekli Tepe – named without explanation after a pre-historic settlement located in what is now Turkey – is a psychedelic monster that threatens to engulf everything around it, complete with overblown chanting and gnostic, inscrutable words.

This contrarian approach, distilling the noise of times past and decanting into it the paranoia of the present, is very much a facet of the region The Pale White came back to embrace.

The homecoming gave them a surge of creativity, but one sprinkled with a mischief bound in the north east’s cultural idiosyncrasies.

If we’re not from around there, then getting it is an outcome the band can take or leave.

The most pronounced exhibition of this on Inanimate Objects Of The 21st Century is the closer All I Have To Do Is Dream, a cover version of The Everly Brothers’ classic which strips away the original’s veneer using a raw and twisted grunge aesthetic.

The claustrophobic vibe this process creates is unnerving; saying I may be dreaming about you, but not at all in the way you’d like.

Those who prefer things less lost in translation will be more than satisfied with the album’s core, however.

The Rhodes-toting Oh Brother locks into an ear friendlier, bluesy groove that recalls The Black Keys on a good day, whilst the harmony loaded chorus of Disappoint Me flexes The Pale White’s daytime radio chops effectively.

It’s not a coincidence that the best moments are totally on this message. Here, Mannequin throws some OK Computer shadow whilst the furious garage of Absolute Cinema – a homage to the now forgotten rituals of the Showcase on a weekend – rattles like a pissed off Geordie snake.

The old and the new then. With Inanimate Objects Of The 21st Century, The Pale White show us that things can thrillingly be the way they used to be, but only if we go on a journey with them.

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