Tender Buttons - Broadcast

Tender Buttons

Broadcast
Warp Records.

SCQ Rating: 73%

Despite my admiration for Warp records and some heavy rotation of single ‘Pendulum’, Tender Buttons was indeed the first Broadcast album I shelled out for and experienced as a whole. As if my timing wasn’t already out of place, this 2005 effort was also their first since the disbanding of two key members, Roj Stevens and Tim Felton. Such a major disruption to songwriting commonly results in a break-up or, at the very least, a notable shift in direction, but Broadcast are no ordinary group. Here’s an outfit that have curiously resisted the spotlight despite their music’s oft insistence for attention, a vocalist who maintains a secondary occupation as an acclaimed author… both their modest nature and unpredictable talents come into play for Tender Buttons; an album that makes a statement by being just as good being Broadcast the Duo as their past work being a quartet.

Starting strong with the psych-noir trip of ‘Black Cat’ yet cooling appropriately on the all-acoustic ‘Tears in the Typing Pool’, Broadcast remain adept at walking the fine line between 60s flower-power pop and some rogue elements of electro-pop. That Tender Buttons never leans far enough into either category, nor carries any traits clumsy enough to be adequately labeled, is an ongoing testament to their craft made more exciting by their skeletal band line-up. And while remaining members Trish Keenan and James Cargill keep these songs well-armed in hooks and texture, Tender Buttons feels admittedly layer-free, as if their approach was chosen to hide nothing, and show that Broadcast are better off the way they are. With tracks like ‘Corporeal’ and ‘Michael A Grammar’ as clear stand-outs, Trish and James make their point rather quickly.

The record’s second half loses some steam, partly due to intermission noodling on ‘Bit 35’ and ‘Minus 3’, and grows a bit stagnant on the sleepwalking ‘Goodbye Girls’. And although a few of these latter tracks could’ve benefited from some bite felt on earlier cuts (‘America’s Boy’ contains a superb yet succinct commentary), Tender Buttons presents the two sides of Broadcast as a pretty, digestible whole. For a newly minted duo to remain capable of such bipolarity, Broadcast deserve the benefit of any doubt this album instigates.