Besides bragging rights only I truly care about, one benefit of listening to an album a day for 14 straight months is the exposure you get to music that some of your favorite artists clearly took inspiration from. Which brings us to Haircut One Hundred, a British New Wave act from the early 80’s that scored numerous Top 5 hits on the charts, but has largely been somewhat forgotten (especially stateside). As soon as I turned on this album and heard their Pelican West‘s lead single “Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)” I immediately was reminded of Foals Total Life Forever. Whether it be the syncopated guitar riff, the thumping bass line that bounces all over the fretboard, the absolute groove of a drum pattern, the off-kilter bridge interlude, or the lead vocal melody (most certainly the lead vocal melody), this sounds exactly like a song Foals would have written if they had access to a time machine and got dumped into 1982. It’s kind of uncanny.
The rest of Pelican West similarly delivers a fun upbeat sound, and while it deviates significantly from the sound of Foals in latter tracks, keeps the same upbeat energy that became impossible not to bob my head along to. Bassist Les Nemes in particular delivers a tremendous performance, with bass hooks littered throughout every song on the album. In doing some research on the recording of the album, lead singer Nick Heyward described their writing process as a glorified jam session which they had to work hard to condense into three minute pop songs. Considering the output, Haircut One Hundred succeeded in every regard with Pelican West.
Standout Songs: “Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)”, “Love Plus One”, “Lemon Firebrigade”, “Fantastic Day”
Matthew. 