Luke Haines is all
about pop songs. Whether it’s German terrorism or child murders or English
wrestling, he has never been anything less or anything more than a great pop
songwriter.
The recently released British Nuclear Bunkers is exactly the
sort of electronic album you would expect from Luke Haines. In an alternative
Universe, this is mainstream. These songs would be all over the charts and
radio in an electronic world of Utopia. Isn’t “Test Card Forever” just a
perfect 2-minute pop song for a world hit by a nuclear explosion?
Because that’s what
we are dealing with here. Some kind of a nuclear apocalypse and underground
shelters in Camden. Gorillas, lemons, yoga. The concept is either pretentious
or far-fetched, probably both, but Luke Haines’ agenda seems to be clear
enough: when it comes to rock’n’roll, it’s better to be silly than to be
boring.
And British Nuclear Bunkers never is. It’s
a brilliant little album, written by a self-indulgent man with great taste and superior
songwriting talent. My only regret is that Luke abandoned another record to do
this. A relatively normal acoustic-based set of songs that never came to life.
I hope it will. I fucking miss that.
