At any given time in a year, there are a handful of vain and tedious, yet critically lauded, post-punk acts making the rounds in (primarily) the British press. I do my best to avoid them as I would incoming seagull guano, but every once in a while, I do get nailed. As I'm scraping the skat off my jacket, I realize that the experience could have been worse and that whatever stain is left on my poor, discolored garment will likely be unnoticeable by the general public after a few cycles through the wash... no one will know how many times I listened to a particular Sprints single, and it will always remain my private shame... As much as it might seem like I'm implying London's Blue Bendy is one of these scatological assailants, they're not... at least not to me. After initially hearing their debut LP, So Medieval, I came away with the impression of a group that knows how to write a simple hook and deliver it with an ironic amount of emphasis that overemphasizes its import in amusing ways. More than that, the group felt grounded and approachable, fun and deftly warm. I wouldn't have put them in the same basket as say... Yard Act or Black Country, New Road... at least not until I started reading the press that surrounds them, that is... I'm sure vocalist Arthur Nolan et alia have nothing but kind feelings towards these other groups, however, I think it's somewhat reductive to lump them all together, and I'm slightly glad that I simply listened to and grew to appreciate Arthur's wispy, drawling delivery, and the band's ability to balm and smooth out a sparse and weedy groove, without having encountered anyone else's opinion on what sort of impression these aesthetic turns should leave on me. There is something more honest and less witty (although Arthur does have acuity for amusing character profiles) about Blue Bendy on So Medieval that one could miss if they were subsumed in the hype around their work. For me, it's the bare, unobscured disposition of their organically unaligned poetic temperaments that give a playful push to their polished-down Baroque antics, nudging them into the realm of comedic misrule, without sacrificing attention to melody or the everpresent grain of lucid sincerity, that I've grown to appreciate the most with the time that I've spent with So Medieval. I may be forever undermining my own position as a writer when I say this, but don't let anyone else tell you how to feel about an act until you've heard them for yourself. It's always more fulfilling to experience what a piece of music can gift to you when you encounter it with no pretense than if you hop into its weft loaded down with another's baggage.
