The Auteurs were started by then couple Luke Haines and Alice Redman with former classmate Glenn Collins. They put together a demo and were quickly signed to Hut Records. “New Wave” was their first full-length release.
The entry in the book talks about them being progenitors of ‘Britpop’… but then, as frequently happens with genres or musical movements, several albums in the book have been given this honour. I do find it interesting that so many of these musical movements can spring up like this, with multiple different bands all relatively independently arriving at similar musical destinations.
While I was living in the UK there seemed to be this trend towards artists who ruminated on everyday things (the Streets, Arctic Monkeys) whereas I’ve always preferred more obscure lyrics that maybe use a bit of clever or creative wordplay. This band seems to have a more cinematic/theatrical vibe, such as on opening track "Show Girl" with the crashing, flashy intro suddenly vanishing into a quietly subdued verse. The arrangements are bit more interesting than straight-ahead ‘rawk n roll’ and I could certainly hear similarities between this band and artists like Blur or Suede (Supergrass at a stretch).
While I won’t say they’re my new favourite band, I do think they are an artist that requires further investigation.
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