by Dingy, carpeted, sticky tables but cheap pints, who can resist the allure of a run-down old boozer? If you can, I don’t think I want to be friends, and neither do London‘s Home Counties.
“Bet where you go usually’s a bore,” Will Harrison sings on ‘Meet Me In The Flat Roof’, a track that’s half a love letter and half a self-aware takedown. Set in the majesty of some of London’s oldest flat-roofed pubs, scattered amongst housing estates, clinging onto rented land on the river roof or standing tall like a bastion of old communities as gentrification surrounds them, the band take us to the best of the classic boozers while being more than aware that they’re not really its intended clientele.
Packed with wit and layered over a gripping indie-electro instrumentation, there’s nuance at play here too. I could write you a full essay about it if you wanted, about the complex love for these original pubs by new residents and younger crowds who see them as nostalgic trips becoming trendy again. I could write about the ways that this obsession is somewhat in conjunction with the fetishising of working-class culture, especially as it contributes to gentrification, which pushes the original customers out as the prices go up.
I could also write about the flip side, about how even with those issues, new clientele is always essential for businesses, so how are we supposed to feel when gentrification actually saves a fading old watering hole?
I could write about all of that, but the band already has this danceable four-minute-long track. They’ve done it far more succinctly than I ever could, and I couldn’t hope to add a synth line as slick as the one Barn Peiser Pepin provides.
“On one level, it’s pub appreciation, a love letter (of sorts), but one I hope conveys some self-awareness of how insufferable it makes me sound,” Harrison said about the song, adding, “It’s about that tendency to brag about going to ‘authentic’ places while simultaneously contributing to their gentrification at the same time. The joke’s on us as much as anything.”
Ahead of the release of their second album, Humdrum, next month, ‘Meet Me In The Flat Roof’ is another teaser to get you hooked in. Sticking with what they do best, which is sharp observation packed with wry humour over an indie beat, it’s also met with clear experimentation as the band continue to push forward into new sonic territories. With more to come and a lot to chew on with this track, get a pint and mull it all over in the meantime.
