PRICE:
$19.50
IN STOCK
ARTIST
TITLE
Nervous Energy
FORMAT
LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
SOUTHEND 002LP SOUTHEND 002LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
2/22/2019

LP version. The Plan has been described as "Talking Heads meets The Breeders", but their debut album Nervous Energy takes the band in a more progressive and experimental direction. Post-punk in origin, but with overtones of no wave, psych, and garage rock, the record flaunts its flexibility with a mismatch of emotions. Nihilism, humor, and pure joy compete and collude with an overriding positivity carrying all songs. The band's snappy lead single "Annotate The Text" boasts a repetitive, tumbling post-punk call-and-response, coming in at just over one-and-a-half minutes. Guitarist/vocalist Rebecca Gillieron says of it: "I used to be an editor, so this was probably written whilst I was meant to be working, and it's about taking control of reality, embellishing the best features of your existence, deleting negative factors, shaping the positive elements." Nervous Energy showcases The Plan's love of straight-forward, good tunes that get screwed-up by degrees. Fierce beats, unruly guitars, barely suppressed mania from the keys, and homemade-cello underlay soaring harmonies delivered by well-matched female vocals. "You can dance to it too," they claim. Originally the side project of Rebecca Gillieron from all-female trio Wetdog, The Plan has become a force of its own. Forming in the summer of 2016, this definitive line-up includes previous members of Vic Godard's Subway Sect, Private Trousers, and The Ghosts, and keeps itself close to home: half the members live together, some are married, many are related. Song themes shape-shift across the record; subjects range from childhood memories (" 'The Wall' was triggered by the memory of throwing a tennis ball against a brick wall at primary school for hours"), romanticizing about natural, local luxuries ("Abbey Wood"), abandoning inhibitions and jumping straight into the unknown ("Pier Party Nerves"), conflicting desires of wanting a nice, quiet, controlled, and peaceful life but at the same time harboring after extreme chaos and instability ("Bright Lights"), and the simple joys of being a parent ("Chorus"). "The perceptiveness of Ray Davies meets the eerie folk of Shirley Collins meets the unstopability of The Fall meets the combustibility of The Raincoats" --Tim Burrows "The Plan are as compelling as they are inventive, reminiscent of some of the more inventive post-punkers but with a power and creativity that is very much their own" --Zoë Howe