The Courteeners
Concrete Love
Release Date: Aug 18, 2014
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, New Wave/Post-Punk Revival
Record label: Cooperative
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Album Review: Concrete Love by The Courteeners
Fairly Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 7/10
The Courteeners fourth studio album, 2014's Concrete Love, is a sweeping, organically layered, '80s-influenced effort. Building upon the anthemic synth pop of their previous 2013 album, Anna, the Manchester outfit delve even deeper into a layered post-punk sound that finds them adding more guitars and even strings on some cuts. Featured here are such singles as the driving "How Good It Was" and the romantic "Summer." .
Based on rating 2.5/5
The Courteeners will always be a lightning rod for anyone with a distaste of guitar-based Mancunian triumphalism, the cottage industry of self-proclaimed prophets and bullshitters conceived by Morrissey and the Gallaghers to which Liam Fray belongs. In his defence, the axe-grinders usually overlook the list of not-inconsiderable achievements his band have to crow about, but coming off the back of last year’s ‘Anna’ – The Courteeners’ best album to date – you suspect that ‘Concrete Love’ will only entrench opinions, not change them. Fray’s least of all, of course.
Opinion: Average
Courteeners lost some baggage in the shape of their ‘The’ last year with the release of “Anna”; a sign of their age perhaps? Maturity? Weight loss? It normally suggests a change in direction, but from where I’m sitting Courteeners remain (apart from Liam’s haircut) the same; a fixed mantelpiece trinket in the halls of indie. Not necessarily a bad thing; the band have a stamp, a trademark, a ‘sound’ which they are glued to. Liam Fray has a penchant for floating love songs and disgruntled Mancunian ballads, and it does work - but isn’t getting a little samey? Following on from the album taster How Good It Was EP, the outfit have revealed their fourth long player Concrete Love.