By Sam Wise.
Elliot Hall, the young songwriter whose nickname gave Welly its moniker, is a lightning ball of energy on stage. Having watched the band tear up Southampton’s Heartbreakers in their recent homecoming show, I was fascinated to see how such a high intensity experience would work in a recorded format. The short answer is that the immense energy of the live show is only one facet of Welly’s impressive arsenal. What can be lost in the raucousness of their performance is the immense literacy of the songs.
Now, every article you read about Welly (I read a lot of them), references the “wry portraits of suburbia”, and they’re not wrong; this album is full of humour, irony, fun little portraits of the banal. What you can miss, if you’re not listening closely, is the real pathos that’s blended in here and there. Hall refers to himself as a “suburban smart-arse”, and it’s undoubtedly true, but there’s enough poetry here to make you keenly anticipate his future writing.
Welly’s live sound, a raw, upbeat guitar driven sound with a serrated edge, translates much better to a record than I would have anticipated. Much of the energy and momentum of their live performances makes it to the recorded songs, and the production lets the lyrics emerge in a way that’s difficult to capture in small live venues. What you’re going to get is simple, direct riffs, some nice synth noises, and observational songs in an estuary accent. It feels hacky to say it, but there’s a lot of Blur in the mix, and if you enjoy some fun synth noises mixed into your guitar punk/pop, this will be for you.
Opening with the title track, Big in the Suburbs sets out its stall from the beginning. You know where you are, and where you are is Chandler’s Ford, which for me is an entirely new experience from a record. Over a jagged guitar riff, Hall expounds on the feeling of being a biggish fish in a small and limiting pond, setting the tone for everything which will come after. Self-effacing in a way that belies their onstage swagger, Welly build themselves up and knock themselves down in the same verse, voicing grand ambitions but then mocking their own self importance with an irony which is uniquely British.
I particularly enjoyed the opening to Shopping, which offers “I want the highlife, Up on the high street, Just like Paris if Paris is made of concrete”. The delicious irony of this suburban view is that Paris suburbs are indeed made of concrete, more so even than our own, and that as British as this viewpoint is, it has resonances for dwellers of city outskirts and hinterlands all over Europe. Perhaps we’re really more cosmopolitan than we think.
This is a very accomplished debut for such young musicians, and for those of us from the Southampton area, it has an added charm, an extra authenticity. There is a great joy to hearing energised, talented young musicians grabbing the everyday familiar aspects, not just of life, but of our specific area, and turning them into something joyous and celebratory.
Big In The Suburbs, the debut album from Welly due to be released on March 21st. Welly will be at Vinilo, Southampton, for an instore event of March 25th, and are bringing The Seaside Tour to SoBear Cave, Bournemouth, on April 17th.
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