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While on the surface just another of those Joy Division inspired gloom rockers that have been springing up in the wake of Interpol et al, The Departure are a band that add more than a sparkle of punk-funk to the mix.
Sitting somewhere between Franz Ferdinand and Joy Division, DIRTY WORDS is an album that takes dark lyricism and jerky guitar rhythms then pours on large portions of melody and a dash of disco inspired beats.
Leading with the densely claustrophobic JUST LIKE TV, a song made up of layers of effected guitars and thumping bass married to staccato drum stings. The vocals are sung in a mannered tone somewhere between Ian Curtis and Alex Kapranos, delivering lines like "i'm climbing up the walls/i'm trying to get a look i can't see/pushing away hands that grab at what they could never be/oh, i can almost touch it" with a paranoid manicness. The wired punk-funk of TALKSHOW is driven by a pounding rhythm section and a Gang Of Four guitar attack, while vocal chants ensure that vital hook.
Debut single ALL MAPPED OUT, was and still is one of those arresting songs that immediately sucks you in and refuses to let go. Catchy melodies that come wrapped up in frantic guitar diversions are played out over handclap drum patterns, all the while acting as one of those essential indie-disco floor fillers. The Cure meets Human League, ARMS AROUND ME, proves The Departure are a band who can spread their influences further than late seventies post-punk - they can also do eighties pop. Singing in a Robert Smith like purr, this is the kind of anthemic pop that made The Killers a household name over the past year - so things bode well for The Departure.
While there is a certain pop element to proceedings, there's also a fair amount of detached cool and dark undercurrents at play on DIRTY WORDS that may well see The Departure struggle to hit the mainstream nerve of other recent indie-rock crossovers. They deliver the occasional big anthemic chorus or a handful of songs to rival Franz Ferdinand's pop crown, but there's a underlying coldness that leaves them more akin to Interpol in the end.
CHANGING PILOTS is the bands most obvious homage to Joy Division, an almost uncanny Ian Curtis imitation at times, that cruises over robotic drum patterns and glistening guitar riffs while the clanging drum snaps that run through BE MY ENEMY points towards a band who can look beyond their influences to a future as a band that are more than the sum of their parts.
DIRTY WORDS is a record that struggles to find its own unique identity at times, relying a little too much on past influences that range from Joy Division to The Cure to Depeche Mode to Gang Of Four. The Departure know how to write an anthemic indie guitar song when the mood takes them, and its this fact that'll see them raising their profile over the coming years you'd suspect. Not the most consistently inspiring debut record you'll ever hear and one that hits a definite dip towards the end, but nevertheless DIRTY WORDS is a definite grower and has enough moments of post-punk class to, at the very least keep you coming back for more.

What’s it like to live your life on fast forward? The Departure found out in 2004. In February, they made their live debut in a pub in Northampton. Six months later they were onstage at the Reading Festival, the audience singing along to their hit single. “That was the first time we’d played to a big audience who really knew our songs,” recalls bassist Ben Winton. “‘All Mapped Out’ had gone top 30, and people were singing it back to us. That was brilliant, a goosebumps moment.”
The Departure are David Jones (vocals), Sam Harvey (lead guitar), Lee Irons (guitar/backing vocals), Ben Winton (bass) and Andy Hobson (drums). They live in Northampton, which has the distinction of being Britain’s biggest town (it lacks the cathedral that would give it city status) but which otherwise is a town like any other: a good record shop, a couple of live venues, but no real music scene as such. But all of this was just another incentive to The Departure, who were determined to make their own fun, in their own way. “We were bored, and we wanted to get up and do something with our lives,” says Lee. “And what better way than writing songs and being in a band? It’s the most exciting and passionate way of expressing yourself.”
The influences? In their teens there was Brit-pop, which showed it was possibly to be loudly, proudly British. Then there was the build-up to the Millennium and the subsequent collapse of club culture, and afterwards there was.. well, there was Pop Idol. Which perhaps explains why so many scattered 20-year-olds simultaneously began searching through older relatives? CD collections and rediscovering the 80’s, a decade that was over before any of The Departure had an age in double figures. "It was almost an unconscious thing,” says Ben. “It wasn’t planned, it was just in the air. You can tell by the number of bands in America who’ve been listening to the same thing.”
The five members each bring their own very different influences and personalities into the mix, but three albums were key at the start: U2’s ‘War’, The Smiths ‘Meat Is Murder’, and Depeche Mode’s ‘Violator’. Until he was 16 David grew up in a commune without TV or radio, giving him a naïve, quirky take on popular culture. Throw The Cure, Magazine and Echo & The Bunnymen into the mix, Ben’s love of soul and funk, Lee’s parents’ Motown collection, Andy?s parents passion for roots music, Sam’s year of studying jazz theory at college (“I only did it to look clever!”) and you’re starting to get some idea of the Departure, although like all bands, together they’re much more than the sum of their individual influences. “We all fit together very well,” Andy points out. “All the parts are there for a reason, it’s all carefully thought about.”
And once they’d started making music, these boys didn’t hang around. "We knew we had to create our own buzz because we were from a small town,” says Lee. “No one would come and see us there.” So just after their second gig, they went to London to record their first demo. While they were there. they decided to call round the record companies and drop off their music in person, which is how their next rehearsal came to be attended by a gaggle of A&R men, with an eager queue of prospective managers waiting outside. The weekend after recording their demo, The Departure played their third gig at a local band night in Northampton. "It was funny,” recalls Lee. “It was an all-ages show so there was a sea of 13-year-old girls in eyeliner and then all the A&R men at the back.”
So what excited the record labels so? A potent combination of youth, enthusiasm, energy and attitude. A singer as clumsily appealing, as unmistakably English, and as angry as a young Jarvis Cocker. A band who’s ringing guitars, funky bass and solid drums recall early U2, as well as bands like The Chameleons and the Psychedelic Furs. Plus they looked good, they had a great set of proper songs. And they had real ambition. "We think big picture,” declares Sam. “We don’t just want to write songs that sound good now, we want songs that will still sound good in ten years’ time.”
This is why they chose to sign to Parlophone, a label with a proven track record of developing bands for the long term, and why they then went out on the road non-stop, honing their skills and their songs as a support act to The Killers, Gang Of Four and Graham Coxon as well as touring in their own right. In the process their sound has matured, and the jerky, angular feel of their early writing is now making way for bigger, more melodic songs. And although they?ve had chart success in the shape of 'All Mapped Out’ and ‘Be My Enemy’, they weren’t willing to put out an album until they felt they had something they were completely happy with.
So Dirty Words is out on June 20th. The songs are a quirky take on everyday life, from signing on to falling in and out of love (and lust). "The whole delivery is quite sleazy,” says David. “It’s talking about some stuff that’s a bit taboo.”
“I’d say a lot of the lyrical content is quite romantic,” adds Ben. “But we’re finding a different way of expressing that than just ‘I love you.’ As for the music, we’re passionate about it, and we want other people to feel that too.?
What’s important to The Departure is that they produce something more than pleasant background noise. "I’ve always wanted to reach as many people as I can with my music, to make them feel something,” says David. “We want to make music that tests the listener, that provokes reactions. There’s been nothing exciting for a few years now, and there’s a whole generation out there searching. We were all hungry to be in a band that meant something.”

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