There have been a lot of changes in The Xcerts’ camp over the past few years… A change of label, management and other personal and global challenges have made the release of their fifth album ‘Learning How to Live and Let Go’ a triumph in itself. Seeing it as a cathartic unshackling, the band promise to freely explore new sounds and bring more eclectic influences into the mix…
Recent single ‘Gimme’ offers a taster of the trio’s more experimental direction, balancing Charli XCX-style skewed pop with healthy doses of shouting before ‘Car Crash Culture’ heads back into a more familiar Bleachers-esque sound with synthesised vocals, spoken-word interludes and jaunty, wonky keys. ‘Jealousy’ is a self-deprecating yet defiant slice of Britpop with lyrics that strike a chord – ‘My therapist says I’m a wreck. An egotistical, anxious mess’; ‘The company I like to keep is misery’ – while the anthemic ‘Ache’ adds a shoegaze feel, potent shoutalong of ‘I’m picking flowers in a junkyard, I’m seeing beauty in the darkness’ and a perfectly pitched cameo from Architects’ Sam Carter.
‘Drag Me Out’ is an emotional piano ballad that has elements of Maggie Rogers, especially in the heartfelt and nostalgic lyrics – ‘I wish I could tell you everything, the silence in this room is deafening’ – and repeats of the album title. This is followed by the largely acoustic ‘Everything I Cannot Live Without’, a largely acoustic song that to us sounds like a spiritual successor to Xcerts staple ‘Aberdeen 1987’ with memories about how ‘You told me about your thesis, I told you I was gonna be a rock star’ being brought to the fore.
The unashamedly funky and decidedly horny ‘Lovesick’ opens with its title being spelled out in falsetto and the band transforming into Prince’s The Revolution – with a dose of The 1975 – as Murray Macleod ramps things up with talk of ‘Sex in the morning’ and a demand of ‘Why don’t you pull me a little bit closer, place some dirty thoughts in my head?’.
Things cool down over the 80-second ‘Inhale(her)’ and ‘Lust in Translation’, the latter capturing those initial feelings perfectly as Murray remembers exactly what a girl was wearing and how he fell for the ‘tragic beauty’. ‘Blame’ is all about taking responsibility while ‘My Friends Forever’ is another tender love song: ‘On the night I threw my arms around you, it was the last time that we both said goodbye so I cry into the sky. My friends forever.’
The record finishes with ‘It Ain’t Easy’, a song that falls somewhere between Paul Simon and Frightened Rabbit with talk of confusion and finding answers and what appears to be High Fidelity references: ‘All my life I’ve tried to fill this hole in me with movies, music, books, conversations’. It also features a great course correction as Murray knowingly takes a look back: ‘I don’t know why I thought I’d find it in the bedrooms of strangers and rock and roll? Maybe I did… Who gives a shit’.
‘Learning How to Live and Let Go’ is – rather aptly – the sound of a band releasing the shackles and enjoying a newfound freedom to explore new sounds, genres and directions – while losing none of the heart that has made them so beloved.