Hard-hitting beats, Krautrock guitars and endless hooks make for an enjoyable listen from the Personal Trainer/Pip Blom supergroup, but the duo struggle to keep pace with their contemporaries.
Photo: Joni Spaan | Words: Magnus Crawshaw
The king and queen of Dutch indie — Willem Smit of Personal Trainer and Pip Blom of (you'll never guess) Pip Blom — come together for an album of hook-fuelled indie rock and scraggy post-punk. Their two main projects have built a reputation for reliable indie rock following the lead of '90s greats such as Pixies, Pavement, and Guided By Voices. Tastefully overdriven chords, four-note guitar melodies, and barked hooks — the kind of thing Radio 6 dads and their sons can all enjoy playing happily in the background over breakfast. As a supergroup, the two push the envelope a few centimetres further, delving into frantic motorik beats, touches of electropunk, and guitar tones that wouldn't sound out of place on a latter-day CAN album. But for an album written by two artists who have been in a relationship for ten years, it can come across surprisingly icy. And at a time when indie music is becoming more sincere and emotional, that sense of detachment feels out of step with the zeitgeist.
This emotional disconnect carries into the lyrics. The second verse of album opener 'Pig' includes the lines: "I asked how are you doing / You said I'm fine / Could you leave me alone". Some artists can take mundane imagery and ground-level anecdotes and imbue them with immutable poignancy; no matter how fun the beats or how sticky the hooks, this is not one of those projects. 'Weird Peace' sees the duo lean into their strengths, hybridising the languid, oddball songwriting of the likes of Stephen Malkmus with the jangly, anxious vibe of Dry Cleaning. Long Fling are at their peak when they aren't afraid to embrace these more jarring instincts. 'Flung' is another highlight in this sense, a light-hearted yet hard-hitting electroclash ditty.
'Cool Bottle Water Park' is a fun addition to the track listing, with an earworm pre-chorus that takes the award for the album's catchiest hook (of which there are many). It captures the energy of early post-punk bands going pop — 'Outdoor Miner' by Wire comes to mind. Unlike that comparison, however, it struggles to hold up under scrutiny. "Allergies, as if there's something coming over me / As if it's something that was meant for me / As if there's something coming" — you cannot convince me these lyrics are about anything except hyping the chorus. 'Tossed' is guilty of the same sin: "A shiny fire truck / A bowl of lobster claws… I tried to miss some calls / Suffer a silent night". No matter how well the syllables might scan, it doesn't imbue the track with meaning.
We live in a time when guitar groups have adopted a more sensual tone, moving away from the angular punk of the early 2020s. Feeling things is in — be it the soulful art rock of Geese or the hedonistic garage spirit of bar italia. This makes the detachment underpinning the album feel a couple of years too late. 'Long Fling' is at its strongest when the band are at their most personal. Highlights include the intimate closer, 'Peter Dickens', an organ-led, gently building twee-pop song about a couple learning to find contentment under the banner of domestic bliss. The steady, urgent beat, coupled with the first hint of reverb on the album, create a romantic atmosphere that the preceding nine tracks neglect. At its worst, this record recalls the third wave of post-Brexit bands like FEET or Hotel Lux, playing catch-up with the trending sound of the South London scene. At its best, however, Long Fling peeps behind the curtain, offering flashes of vulnerability and intensity that shine through the veil, glimmering just beneath the surface.
