The Long Blondes "Five Ways to End It"
On Tuesday the Long Blondes' beloved debut, Someone to Drive You Home, finally ended its hard-to-get act and found its way to American shores (as long as those shores have reasonably hip record stores). To entice the criminal downloaders and decadent import buyers to pony up, Rough Trade has included a four-track bonus disc, compiling some of the finer B-sides that Britpop magnate Erol Alkan cooked up with the band.
"Five Ways to End It" is the most dance-friendly of the extras -- and the least man-friendly. Kate Jackson, atop her perch as the most romantically doomed pop persona in recent memory, spreads the pain a bit further by coaching a pal to desert her man through a variety of techniques. Alkan's production masks Jackson's conspiratory whisper, amping up the techno beat or the guitar feedback just as you're leaning in to hear what the girls are saying about you. It's a neat trick, and even in a track that's not built around sharp guitar hooks, the put-upon glamour of the Blondes shines through. If Jackson was merely a scold, this cock-blockery could be tiresome, but there's nuance in her voice that makes you unsure if she's doing this just to cause this guy pain or repeating her "Once and Never Again" plot to steal his lady for herself. The ambiguity makes the club-zombie outro feel almost sinister.