"Your records are telling you lies!" opens Tigertown Pictures, Comet Gain’s more musically and emotionally adventurous take on riot grrrl’s Huggy Bear and Emily’s Sassy Lime. With tear / beer-stained sentiments and boy-girl vocals, this U.K. gang of four’s art-punky rickety rack explores why our most cherished music turns on us when relationships fail.
Songs that once defined our past loves inevitably become their ghosts, so when Rachel Evans sings, "Jack Nance was lost inside this song," we know exactly what she means. Music’s casualties are numerous and brutal, turning our record collections into obituaries. To paraphrase the opening track, rock is cancer.
Which is the loosely conceptual genesis of Tigertown Pictures, a punk ‘n’ roll, rock ‘n’ soul fantasy of the mysterious Tigertown as escape from music that continuously breaks our trust. The catch is that, by falling for Comet Gain’s heartbreaking disappointment, we accept the same implicit handshake that these songs will, someday, become mere remnants of what was.
Comet Gain knows that we shouldn’t look for answers in music, but still we beg, "Save us Mr. Songwriter ... I love you ... it’s you that holds back the tears." In other words, tell us lies, tell us sweet little lies.
