Since reforming back in 2022, The Room’s second run has proved itself to be a creatively fruitful and satisfying thing. Since then, they have released Restless Fate, an album chiefly concerned with mortality and the passing of time and The Telling, a concept album about a folk-horror story centred in a seventeenth century village. To this we can now add new album Doom Pop.
The album is an attempt by The Room to be more pop, or whatever passes for pop once it has been subjected to their own dark perspective, with songs generally around the three or four minute mark. Of course, this being The Room and all, there is a dark undercurrent that skews the album away from being bright and cheerful. The album’s title of Doom Pop seems entirely appropriate here.
The state of the world and the shadow of Donald Trump loom large in front man Dave Jackson’s lyrics, along with films, books and stories, as we have now come to expect from him. There is again a literate and cinematic feel to Jackson’s storytelling that adds richness and maybe even eccentricity to songs that are trying to fit into a more pop mould. The result is not quite an iron fist in a velvet glove, but maybe a cynical grin hidden behind an inviting smile.
The album sets out its stall early with opening track Drill Baby, Drill taking aim at Trump and his ignorance of consequence in favour of short term greed. Jackson sums it up with the excellent line “Drill, baby, drill, I don’t even like my grandkids, why should I care if their world has to die”, which seems to sum up the thought processes behind both Trump’s soundbites and his actions.
The song sounds urgent and driving, carried along by interlocking guitar lines and a throbbing bass line. There is still a Liverpool post punk sound to The Room, while sounding very much mad in the modern day. They were always one of Liverpool’s cleverest bands, so it’s perhaps no surprise that they can manage to pull of this balancing act with such aplomb.
Magic Game is a gentler affair, looking at the world through a child’s eyes, specifically Jackson’s grandmother’s parlour, and gazing on mementos and artifacts gathered over a lifetime. The lyrics evoke a sense of childhood wonder at what adults might consider to be everyday artifacts, unnoticed and uncommented upon, but may fill a child’s memory so much he can still recall them sixty years later; “a fire engine made of tin, a double diamond by the grate, grandad sleeping while I play.” The music is suitably wistful and the combined effect is subtly moving.
Things Have Learnt To Walk That Ought To Crawl is a lost classic that has been brought back to life after originally being released back in 1982. It is probably The Room’s best known song and is one of the few songs that have survived long enough to make it into their current live set. It still hums with the vibrancy of youth and benefits from a clearer, more muscular production.
Things take a darker turn with Trespassing, which match a deceptively lovely backing with Jackson’s flair for storytelling, looking at camp where aging oligarchs vacation in the bodies of the poor in a futuristic holiday camp. This knack for fabulation easily sets The Room apart from their peers in that they can take the listener on a journey in strange worlds where, quite literally, anything could happen.
Temptation Harbour is a beautiful minor key lament where bass, guitar and keyboards combine to form a lush groundswell for Jackson to look at three films by Hungarian film director, Bela Tarr. In lesser hands this may come across as pretentious, but in the hands of The Room it is an album highlight.
Red Guitars UK Tour 2023The album’s title track features atmospheric slashing guitar and a bubbling bass line. It has a fine sense of drama about it and builds effectively as it goes along, matching the song’s theme of the downsides of modern tech, as Jackson sings, “From the White House to the Kremlin, bad vibrations – world is trembling, from the tech bros and their clones feeding fever to your phones.”
The shadow of Trump falls over us again as Continent of Lies looks at what is happening over in America and is even spreading to our own shores. Again, the music disguises the seriousness of the subject matter with an almost fairground feel to the verses.
The Room adds to the air of paranoia and worry and features another cinematic lyric. The song has hints of ’60s pop combined with spiky guitar. The two shouldn’t really work, but they knit together very effectively and underline how The Room’s take on pop was never going to be straightforward, it was always going to be shot through with a post punk sensibility.
No One Comes Here From the Town is another haunting and atmospheric song, inspired by Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. There are hints of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds here and both song and story are in unison. Some superb work on the drums adds an up tempo feel to a down tempo song and once again we are reminded that The Room are a clever band who are always capable of a surprise.
Stories perhaps sums up The Room’s approach to their literate pop when they tell us that “The Telling is easy, the journey is hard.” Taking the less easy path always has its price, but as we all know, this is often where the best music comes from and Stories is no exception.
Doom Pop closes with another look at the horrors of the modern world in Drones – a title that shows how a simple word can convey horror and death. It is a word that has many meaning and one definition is taken up by the music, leaning towards drone rock in the verses. The song creates an atmosphere that is worrying and claustrophobic, the band’s worry palpably leaping out of the song at the listener.
The Room have created an extraordinary record that faces up to the world they find themselves in. The intention may have been to create a pop record, but they have surpassed that and given us a collection of songs that comfort and terrify in almost equal measure. Maybe it is the wisdom of age, but The Room are one of the few bands whose second life has surpassed the creative highs of their first.
They are still one of Liverpool’s coolest bands, even if they do make me want to lock my windows and doors and hold my loved ones closer.
Doom Pop is out now vi 9 x 9 Records. Purchase here.