I love that stage in a boy’s life when he becomes a man. Before you get the wrong idea and accuse me of being a kiddy-fiddling pervert, I am referring to the stage when a lad realises that a ponytail or jocking about does not a man make. But it is an acceptance of being who you are and being grand with it. This is what Mystery Jets‘ latest album, Radlands, embodies, except they’ve skipped man and went right for old man.

The dapper Blaine Harrison and co. appear to be paying homage to icons like Bruce Springsteen (I doubt the album title is a mistake), The Eagles and David Bowie – listen to the Jets’ ‘The Hale Bop’ and try to fight humming ‘Golden Years’. Previous Mystery Jets albums celebrated youth, most notably their 2008 album, Twenty One, with songs like ‘Young Love’, ‘Flakes’ and ‘Two Doors Down’. Unfortunately, in their attempt to provide a mature cheddar sound, they have lost half a spark of what it was that made them so special – that starry-eyed, wondrous approach to the pining hearts of failed and fragmented romances. Back then, their music was the music to bop aimlessly to on the dancefloor and throw shapes for a fleeting shift with a hottie.

In ‘Greatest Hits’, they reference The Kinks, Mark E. Smith, Wings and Minutemen. They question serious-face topics like life and existence in ‘The Nothing’ and religion in ‘Sister Everett’. The love duet, ‘Where The Roses Grow’, with Sophie-Rose Harper is a bluesy, country-twanged ditty. It’s very “let’s just have one glass of wine with a nice roast beef and lament the past and politics”.

Nobody wants to admit that they are less able to act the git repeatedly on nights out but the Mystery Jets have not only admitted it but have heralded it in song. Many bands of their vintage have reached their manhood point. With Arctic Monkeys, frontman Alex Turner has reinvented himself as an Anglo-Josh Homme and even Patrick Wolf has found blasted happiness. We all grow up (Andrew WK is the sole exception to this rule) and that’s a fact but we use some bands as an escape from this dire and depressing fact.

As negative as all this sounds, it is still a good album. The Jets have not pigeon-holed themselves as indie darlings but are admirably changing up their signature resonance. There’s nothing worse than aul fellas lepping about like they’re still 19, ahem Blink 182, but when you are still relatively young, Mystery Jets, please, embrace it.

My hesitance to Radlands is my hesitance to aging. It is my immaturity that has me reaching for Twenty One over Radlands. Some day, I will be ready to absorb their sagely sounds but for now, I will remain throwing shapes for the shift until I retire to Friday nights in drinking port, the perfect setting for this album.

Louise Bruton
Contributor

You can follow Louise on Twitter at @luberachi or read more from her on her blog Not Very Wise. Radlands is streaming now over on the NME website.