Pete and The Pirates

Pete and The Pirates

Motorcycles, blood, sex, guns and insanity. Not things you’d immediately associate with Reading’s prime guitar pop exponents Pete & The Pirates, but then neither are phasing synths, sizzling psychedelia and the general atmosphere of darkness and thunder. Yet, these are the potent thrills P&TP are mixing into their infectious pop stew on their second album, thickening the plot and beefing out their indiepop’s marrow to a staggering bulk. As bold steps forward from their pristine pop 2008 debut ‘Little Death’ go, it’s as fearless as any Wikileak.

‘A Thousand Pictures’ is undoubtedly still rooted in catchy pop melodies, but if ‘Motorbike’ is a sonnet to the delights of revving down train tracks at midnight with your girl on the back and synth-singed first single ‘Come To The Bar’ (“a little taste of something new” says Pete C of the band embracing electronics) finds comfort and solace in the tip of glass at tap, there’s always a sinister twist at hand. It’s there in the hallucinatory re-recording of 2008 b-side ‘Blood Gets Thin’ or the way sure-fire hit ‘United’ laces its yearning celebration of carpet sex with a hint of domestic violence.

“The problem with having a name like Pete & The Pirates is that people assume you’re a chirpy, happy indie band,” says Pete H. “It’s a nice thing to say but it’s not the defining factor of our band.”

Well quite. With their second album three years in the making, P&TP are eager to record their third as quickly as possible, but in the meantime they’ve given us a deep, devious and delicious second album to wallow in. Discard all images of Blackbeard hoisting sail, this feels more like Somalian gunships drifting out of the mist…

One Thousand Pictures is out now on Stolen Recordings