I Was A Cub Scout - I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope Album Review (2008)

I Was A Cub Scout is a young male duo from Nottingham in the UK comprising singer Todd Marriot and drummer William Bowerman. Between them they create a sound which is alien on this side of the Atlantic - a kind of electro-emo-indie. The band has quoted Jimmy Eat World as an influence and has been compared to Postal Service but they are more like their inspiration Death Cab For Cutie with an English indie twist. And as England doesn’t really do emo and when it does it‘s all with a child-like punk edge (shudder at the thought of Busted and early McFly), the hype and expectations surrounding the debut I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope are high.

The deceptively cute opening raindrop-esque keyboards of Save Your Wishes open into a swathe of keyboards and pounding drums. Soon we are introduced to TM’s voice - a wistful Conner Oberst. It is a pleasant soaring electro-pop anthem. Echoes begins with a slightly comical drum solo, complete with solitary cymbal ping. What happens next to much more imaginative as the song unfolds into one of the more complex on the album. The instrumentation under the opening vocals is light and melodic, rising slowly into mid point with rather embarrassed stadium chanting filling the gaps. Lucean could be mistaken for a rework of Brothers On A Hotel Bed as covered by Wombats. The use of trumpet is effective and inspired and the duo deliver a wonderful love song which slows to a crawl in all the right places. As the song begins to close TM is at his most passionate: ‘You are young and unafraid, but you are loved all the same. You can glow and not gloat, you can not do wrong boy…’.

The big single Pink Squares is simply brilliant. From the opening lyrics: ‘Don't the clocks turn back this evening? Another hour for you to try and forget, to try and correct your mistakes..’ which instantly grab your attention to the gloriously bouncy electronic arrangement, it is amazing that it the work of just two people. Two people who haven’t reached the age of 20 yet. Unlike Lucean this is a more direct song of lost love for the modern Arctic Monkeys world: ‘Oh oh oh am I in trouble? Darling I apologise. I need you more than anything. Please come back with me tonight’.

The album continues the high standard with the darker moody Pt. III. Again there are many songs in one here: from the opening vocals into the soft delicate anti-hook build-up then a faster chorus. ‘My shoulder’s pretty chipped and you’re well aware of it’ is a great line. And all through the song is WB’s drums which take on a life of their own in the closing section - a signature military march pierces through the stark electronic battlefield before TM comes back in…

…This glides into opening of We Were Made To Love complete with ’my first keyboard demo loop’ and handclaps. What emerges is another great if slightly wobbly pop song - TM’s rambling ill-fitting vocals wash over and then through everything. The toy keyboards come back in before he takes the reigns back: ’So you keep trying and you keep doing what you do best. We were made to love but we’re not the best at it‘. Wonderful. Our Smallest Adventures has a more heavy feel with driving guitars and drums. But TM sounds a bit too desperate here. The last 30 seconds which sounds as if half the sound has been switched off is great.

Recommendations is something of a stumbling block, again with uneasy vocals and fragmented arrangement. TM is aggressive one minute and then upbeat the next as the music juxtaposes accordingly. In contrast, the same principles adopted in The Hunter’s Daughter work magnificently. If there is a down side it’s that it’s the most English sounding song on the album - a bit too ’lad culture’. The ending is almost identical to the end of Pt. III with signature rolling drums and trumpet, with added soaring empty vocals.

The last two songs on the album initially make you think IWACS has run out of ideas. Far from it - P’s & Q’s is all about the side open spaces and delicate music. Inside is another great song of longing and compromise, the opening lines: ’I put the pain in your neck and you put the beat in my heart’ sums it all up. The song has come of the best ideas on the album, full of little twists and turns. The empty backing vocals are a sublime touch. When the song slows down and TM sings: ‘And time may have pulled us down, but it won’t pull us apart’ it feels like a summit has been reached. If anything the outro is weak and unnecessary.

Album closer A Step Too Far Behind is stretched out over five minutes and given what has come before, it feels like the dilution of a formula. But a great sound deserves a good song and the album needs a good closing track. So rather predictably we get a fantastic conclusion in the form of a sweeping outro, which doesn’t quite reach anthemia proportions.

I Was A Cub Scout has created a near perfect album, combining a distinctive sound with enough strength and variation to make it interesting. The fact that WB is a drummer at heart gives much to the arrangements and his consistent energy drives forward the faster songs. What influence producer Hugh Padgham has had over the entire album is debatable but he certainly gives the duo enough space to fill. The lyrical content of the songs may not be the most prolific song writing in the world but it is strong and effective, sometimes obscure, mostly up front. And TM delivers the words with passion and conviction, giving just the right amount of emotion. I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope is a great album if you are in love with the emo sound that has been perfected in the US. This is by no means perfect, but it’s damn close.

-- CS