Venerable BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel's annual Festive 50 listener's poll has been topped by such legends as the Sex Pistols, Joy Division, New Order, Jesus and Mary Chain, and Nirvana. In 2002, Saloon's "Girls Are the New Boys" finished as the Festive 50's No. 1, seeing off admittedly light competition from the UK's scmindie bands, the U.S.'s garage rock revivalists, and poll perennials the Fall. That track is the highlight of the Reading, England five-piece's debut album, (This Is) What We Call Progress, on which Moogs and other vintage synthesizers are used to create pulsating pop sounds and invite innumerable Stereolab comparisons.
On their debut, Saloon's brand of moody Krautrock is closer to Broadcast, another band oft-compared to Stereolab. Like the Birmingham quartet, there are hints of Teutonic sound, but very little drone and few metronomic rhythms (the key ingredients to Stereolab's pre-Chicago work). On their second album, Saloon are slowly heading for the autobahn exit ramp-- or at least riding toward France-- combining analogue synth and chugging, Neu! guitars on one track, album opener "Vesuvias". After that inauspicious start, it seems as if they're digging out of those comparisons for much of the rest of the record, finally hitting their stride with gorgeous centerpieces "Kaspian" and "Dreams Mean Nothing". Instead of motorik and mechanical beats, it's now delicate melodies, the drowsy yet mellifluous vocals of Amanda Gomez, and the occasional accents of melodica, glockenspiel, and strings that characterize Saloon's strongest efforts.
Throughout their lifetime, Saloon have always been rooted in Reading's musical Now, heading the city's "Happy Robots" night and serving as curators of a weekend festival of the same name (a moniker also lent to one's of If We Meet in the Future's weaker tracks). In some ways, Saloon is also now embracing Reading's shoegaze past. The circular guitar lines on "The Sound of Thinking" or the bubbly instrumental passage in "The Good Life" wouldn't be confused with the washes of effect-laden guitar of the early 90s, but they display the textural qualities of the best dream pop. It makes for a more approachable sound, offering embraceable melodies and languid sonics, but ones not sullied by an absence of personality or overemphasis on virtuosity.
Happily, the concessions to the band's limited past-- "Happy Robots," a Spanish-language track, the jumble-sale electronics-- are disappearing in favor of more atmospheric mid-tempo tracks, often with Gomez's feathery, Harriet Wheeler-like voice dancing over low tones and shuffling drums. The further away from the 'Lab and into a more organic sound the band goes, the more satisfying their music is becoming. That's not just a matter of freeing themselves from the restraints of their influences, but of honing their own strengths as well.
