Static Future: I've Seen the Future, the Future is Static

“Is this real love?” enquires Static Future frontman Gavin Marshall on the track of the same name.

The question is as much to himself as it is to the listener or his in-song lover. A thoughtful questioning and questing runs through much of this exciting Glasgow five-piece’s work: memory (buildings which played a significant role in the childhoods of the individual band members were depicted in their first EP’s artwork), lost loves and future dreams are all favourite preoccupations.

Multi-coloured shapes assembled to form buildings assembled to form an imagined city skyline form the cover of Assembly, the band’s latest EP. Musically, here, Static Future display a similar widening of perspective – the four tracks being their most ambitious assemblages of instruments and sounds to date; both a refinement and a stretching out of the nimble, hooky alt-rock which has earned them a loyal following and well-received support spots with The Band Of Holy Joy and St Deluxe.

 
If the lyrics are often tentative and reflective, the music is sure-footed, urgent, propulsive. Layered guitar parts tickle the ear, stab the gut and quicken the heart. Marshall’s scuffed croon is front and centre, and his growing confidence as a vocalist is such that he’s now backing up himself – his BVs bringing depth and a nagging insistence to the choruses of “Is This Real Love?” and “Sunday Suns”. Extended outros – propelled by bass and drums and inspired by 12” Disco edits absorbed on greasy Glasgow dancefloors – hint at the live set’s thrilling bongo and cowbell workouts. 

This is a band who play with their heads and hearts, while never forgetting the Franz Ferdinand maxim of “make music to make girls dance”.

This is a band who crash out in front of Stop Making Sense at 4am, and dream of late-night stalks down New York streets with Pepper LaBeija. 

This is better than (Casual) Sex.

This is real love.


Static Future shall be getting their cowbell on at The Record Factory on April 10th and Bar Bloc on April 23rd. Check their bandcamp for further details.