I Like Trains – He Who Saw The Deep

I Like Trains (or iLiKETRAiNS, depending on your preference) have never been the band to take the easy route. After promising much with their stunning debut EP Progress Reform, their first album Elegies To Lessons Learnt felt too much like hard work at times. The fact it came with a bundle of essays to read make it feel more like cramming in revision for my History A-level than a musical pleasure, the album’s production overly smothered with noise making it at times a sonic mess rather than a tightly crafted collage. Having parted ways with Beggars Banquet, since then the band lost a member and have also dipped a bucket into their sound, removing all the sludge that smothered the previous effort.

This is a bold decision, and one that pays rich dividends. This album is also self-released on their IRL label, funded through a pledge partnership with their fans. For a fee you can have the usual CD as a rewarded incentive, or some more unique gifts and experiences, like hand bound lyric books, personal performance, or a game of scrabble with the bass player. And I’m sure if the price was right the drummer will come round and clean your guttering and cook you a shepherd’s pie, who knows?

And it is really his album, as with the reverb removed Simon Fogal’s drumming really shines through, in a similar way to The National’s ‘Boxer’. This is most evident on single ‘A Father’s Son’, with twitchy rhythms leading to languid deep thuds and well planned cymbal crashes. He is also the star of the hypnotic ‘Sirens’, his drumming loose and fluid, reminiscent of Stephen Morris’s finest moments in Joy Division.

There is more variation here as well, the band drawing from a wider palette. There is also less compulsion to rigidly base the songs on historical fact, allowing greater expression through the lyrics and less of a tendency to shoehorn words and phrases to tell a story. All of this renders the songs more intimate and personal, allowing the listener a greater connection with the composer. Subtle use of strings also adds to this warmth, from the cut up snatches at the end of ‘These Feet of Clay’ to the orchestrations of the powerful ‘Sea of Regret’. Finally, I Like Trains seem to be building on the early promise seen in their first EP, finding comfort in the future rather than dragging up the past. It sees them full of emotion and energy, a tender collection of songs that rely on passion rather than sentiment.