Album Review: The Courteeners, Mapping the Rendezvous

The Courteeners’ burgeoning fan club includes high profile Labour MP Andy Turnham, who has left Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet to concentrate on running for the job of Mayor of Greater Manchester.

These Mancunians originally filled the vacuum left by Oasis with a derivative blend of meat and two veg, landfill indie, but on this, their fifth studio album, they show the strongest signs yet of blossoming into a band who can be taken as seriously as their illustrious musical forefathers.

Inspired by Sebastian Schipper’s film Victoria, about the adventures over a single night of a girl in Berlin, and frontman Liam Fray’s writing sojourn in Paris, Mapping the Rendezvous takes a while to get going. It hits its stride with the brass and string-laden ‘De La Salle’. Throughout the record, Fray maps the disintegration of relationships and the ubiquity of social media. He is a keen lyricist, who has attracted high praise from Manchester titans Morrissey and Johnny Marr. Certainly, when the band break out of their indie-pop straitjacket, the results can be riveting.

The album closes with a paean to the 17th arrondissement in Paris, simply titled ‘The 17th’. It is the sound of The Courteeners channelling LCD Soundsystem and Prince, and it is by far the best thing they’ve done. It points to an intriguing possible direction for the future.