These Four Walls

iTunes Review

Glasgow, Scotland has quite a few bands bursting from its confines with similarly contoured sounds. We Were Promised Jetpacks have already been likened to labelmates Frightened Rabbit and the Twilight Sad, while traces of other Brit bands such as Futureheads and Bloc Party can also be overheard in the band’s pulsing menace. “Moving Clocks Run Slow” may be the album’s most effective track, with its stripped down beginnings that over five minutes twist and turn with an extra sprint and some infectious backing vocals drive its melodic points home. “Short Bursts” replicates the sound of a teletype machine struggling to keep up with the day’s news, but songs such as “Roll Up Your Sleeves” and “ Quiet Little Voices” struggle with a sorrowful undertow dogging their anthemic ambitions. At eight minutes, “Keeping Warm” is the band’s epic, a track that attempts to hold all of life in a fragile hand. Looking for a modest turn, the band ends things with a quiet acoustic number, “An Almighty Thud” that suggests these boys accept and even enjoy their desperate fate.