By Kevin Pearson  |  Send to Friend

“I would have felt pretty bad if we made With Love and Squalor Part II,” explains We are Scientists front man, Keith Murray, when asked about the disparate array of styles displayed on their new album, Brain Thrust Mastery. “When I see people complain that it doesn’t sound like the first album, I take that as a compliment,” he adds. From the subdued and brooding “Ghouls,” which opens proceedings, to the Hall and Oates influenced, saxophone-infused closing track, We Are Scientists’ second album scrubs clean the skittering drums and angular guitars that informed their debut.

Sure, you can still hear dashes of the group’s archetypal post-punk riffing – “Let’s See It,” is the most obvious example – but whereas the band’s first album flung its arms around you in a sweaty embrace, Brain Thrust Mastery lightly taps you on the shoulder until you pay attention. The aforementioned “Ghouls” opens the album with slow, layered, atmospheric feedback, “Lethal Enforcer” builds upon a slight and subtle ‘80s sounding guitar, while “Spoken For” is a textural ballad that takes several listens to sneak into your consciousness. As Murray admits on the phone from England, where the band is on tour -- this album takes a second to sink in.

“I don’t think it was a conscious decision to make a less immediate album,” explains Murray. “We didn’t necessarily sit down and say ‘let’s make a less immediate, more mature record.’ I think that the difference was that on the last record, when we wrote those songs, we weren’t writing them to be on a record. We just wrote them to be as immediate as possible for people seeing us for the first time in a club.” But, after two years of playing short, up-tempo, dance-punk-pop, Murray mentions that everything started to sound “one-note” to him. “We felt as though we didn’t need to rush to the point. The first time people would hear these songs would be on record and not live.” Not that they didn’t have a slew of similar songs, they just decided that they were slightly redundant.As Murray concludes: “Why would we put these on the next album when they sound like the last album?”

Despite forming in California and moving to New York (where the band is still based), the first people to actually hear the new album were the British, who have embraced We Are Scientists more openly than their fellow Americans. Why is that, I ask. “I think that to anybody who has heard mainstream radio in the UK and mainstream radio in the US that is almost a moot question. The sort of thing we do is considered indie rock everywhere else, but it’s considered rock in the UK.” In England, the band gets played on daytime radio, while Brain Thrust Mastery (named after an Anthony Robbins aping, self-improvement lecture series the band gave during their last tour) entered the UK charts at a respectable number 15.

Despite the critical acclaim abroad, the band hasn’t been without upheavals. As the recording of Brain Thrust Mastery began to wind down, drummer, Michael Tapper, decided to quit the group, leaving only Murray and bass player, Chris Cain, as permanent members. In an effort to “keep things exciting” the duo decided to forgo the logical answer of reeling in a replacement and has, instead, employed numerous drummers to help out with their current touring commitments. “We’re hoping that the next record will involve several different drummers,” added Murray, indicating that, for the time being, We Are Scientists will soldier on as a duo.

Much like the music on their new album, which veers from the poppy first single “After Hours” to the Arcade Fire propulsion of “Impatient,” to the raucous, rockabilly-infused “Dinosaurs,” We Are Scientists are a veritable collection of contradictions. While their lyrics are often dark -- switching between self-deprecating, self-loving and self-loathing (on “Ghouls,” Murray states seven times: “We all recognize that I’m the problem here”) – their website, press releases, and videos are full of ironic humor. They have also been known to sport moustaches and sometimes play bare-chested. Does this less serious side detract from the music? “It detracts from the music if people think we’re just trying to be clowny or assholes, especially to a journalist or reader who thinks that is our goal, but it never actually is,” explains Murray, expressing that the band’s desire is to “not be boring.” “We have a knee jerk reaction to err on the side of entertaining, but it’s a hindrance if it stops being helpful.”

Speaking of helpful, the band’s website, as well as featuring the usual items, such as tour dates, contains an advice column. “Don’t quit your day job,” states Murray, when I ask him what the best piece of advice he’s ever given or been given. “Until that is your day job,” he quickly adds. “That doesn’t mean stop trying,” he continues, careening into a story about watching a Christian channel in a Glaswegian hotel room that told college-age kids that God has given everyone specific gifts and that if you’re not supposed to be doing something, then stop trying. “I felt really bad that that was the advice,” he states, somewhat sympathetically. “We were doing this for a very long time in obscurity.”




Freelance writer Kevin Pearson likes to leave something to the imagination. Illustrator Elizabeth Garvey lets it all hang out.