It’s almost extra-terrestrial, the manner in which northern Irish trio Two Door Cinema Club have managed to go from Hot Press Hot For 2010 shortlisters to all-out global superstars, in less time than it takes to learn how to crochet (I’m assuming). The story of how Sam Halliday, Alex Trimble and Kevin Baird turned a giddy electro guitar outfit into one of the most successful bands on the planet has played out across hundreds of sold-out gigs and at least a million sold records, but in the last few months, the stories benchmarking their awe-inspiring rise to fame have started to become truly ludicrous.
Suddenly the boys from Bangor are turning up at the Olympics, hanging out with Prince Charles and, if we’re to believe a recent bout of Two Door-related erroneousness, adding extra dates to their tours because the President of the United States wants to pop along with all of his mates. At this point, I’m starting to think that news sites are fabricating kooky headlines entirely at random. ‘Two Door Cinema Club Accidentally Decode 18th Century Manuscript’. ‘Two Door Cinema Club Work With Descendant Of Blackbeard To Combat Music Piracy’. ‘Two Door Cinema Club Become First Band To Incorporate Planetary Nebulae Into Their Live Show’, and so on. As some aging Hollywood starlet probably said, you know you’ve made it when they start making up crazy shit about you.
With a few months left until Halliday, Trimble and Baird start appearing every day on the showbiz pages of the Daily Mail, it makes sense that the kaleidoscopic side-effects of fame might feature heavily on the band’s second album, albeit possibly not in the way you’re imagining. Far from revisiting wild nights in Bradley Cooper’s penthouse, on Beacon, their twentysomething minds are mostly occupied with things their jet-setting lifestyles have taken them away from: namely, friends, loved ones and the small-town lads they used to be.
From misty-eyed nostalgia (“Each and every thing I see, takes me back before I was me”) to tales of romantic separation (“Drawn apart, New York and London”) and from tour weariness (“I don’t know where I am going to rest my head tonight”) to all-out homesickness (“When I get home, I want to feel less alone”), Beacon finds the Northy noisemakers in a particularly reflective mood.
That said, fans who bought Tourist History solely for the blistering riffs won’t have too many emotions to wade through to get to the good stuff; Two Door’s second LP carries just as many perky hooks and danceable melodies as its chart-conquering predecessor. In sticking to their faultless formula of stadium-ready choruses, playful synth lines and dueling guitars, Trimble and company have pulled a Robbie Williams circa 1998, and created an entire album of future radio hits.
Only TDCC have been far cleverer. In the same way that the simmering electronic pulses on ‘Handshake’ betray the song’s sinister premise (something about the devil...), tracks like the epic, charging ‘Settle’, or the spiky, string-infused ‘Pyramid’ never feel brooding or morose. Lyricist Trimble has dug deep to reflect the downsides of life on the road, but just because he’s thrown himself down the rabbit hole doesn’t mean that the music has to go with him.
On the flip side, the band have clearly soaked up some of the heady California sun they’ve been exposed to, as evidenced by songs like beachy party jam ‘Sun’, breakneck electro anthem ‘Someday’ and the funk-tinged bassline on ‘Wake Up’. A sole female voice, belonging to a woman named only as Valentina, chimes in on the dreamy ‘The World Is Watching’, while title track ‘Beacon’ is the band’s mellowest moment yet, all throbbing xx-style bloops and gently swooning guitars.
Halliday, Baird and Trimble have certainly stretched their legs on Beacon, but where they’ve really triumphed is in retaining what makes Two Door Two Door; handclapable, hairflickable, jumparoundable guitar pop. Showbiz correspondents, do your worst.