Album Review :: The 1975 - Notes On A Conditional Form

Album

The 1975

Notes On A Conditional Form

May 22 2020 (Dirty Hit / Polydor)

7/10

Words: Ali Mack

The 1975 never do anything by halves, and in this epic 22-song-long fourth album, ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’, they have not been shy on underplaying, and come out full of ambitious swagger.

But for all its size in track numbers, is ‘NOACF’ also huge in quality? Well, maybe not huge exactly. Although there are a number of instrumentals, the genre-bending record that traverses electronica, indie and punk-rock, is a valiant and often, quite sharply adroit and clever effort - but one that is so heavily punctuated with self-indulgence and overblown effects that it lose its way like a blind man on a motorway.

With already a multitude of tracks released as singles, listeners will already be primed ready for what the rest may offer: the unnecessary Greta Thunberg call-to-arms monologue is tedious and out of place; the pop nostalgia on ‘Me & You Together Song’ is pleasant, but unmemorable, although the sax-indebted ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’ has a sheeny shine.

Of course it wouldn't be a 1975 album without Matt Healy pouring out his lyrical relationship deeds and woes, and here we have the Phoebe Bridgers featured love song ‘Playing On My Mind’ (“Let’s find something to watch then watch our phones half the time") and ‘I Think There’s Something You Should Know’ (“I’m feeling like ‘someone else’ like ‘somebody else’ I don’t feel ‘myself’”), while on ‘Nothing Revealed / Nothing Denied’, we hear his confession that “I never fucked in a car, I was lying”. Sometimes you find yourself thinking, "Please, Matt, do you really need to go on so?"

‘The End (Music For Cars)’ and ‘Streaming’ are instrumental fillers where you can go and quickly grab a cup of tea and pass by, and leave the six-minute instrumental ‘Having No Head’ for doing probably anything but wasting time sitting glued to it. Give it up for some punk-rock on ‘People' instead, and the “really quite earnest” and “real” closer, 'Guys'.

'Notes On a Conditional Form' is no groundshaking record, despite its few good moments and is about a good 10 tracks too long.