Formation - Look at the Powerful People

Drowned In Sound 70

We’re in a funny quandary. Mankind’s bullshit detectors have never been so finely tuned, and yet, at the same time, bullshit itself has never been so profuse. Wading through it is how we hit our 10,000 steps a day. Knowledge is now elitism. Feminism is now a t-shirt slogan. Ed Sheeran is now the charts.

Formation have set out to call attention to our current appetite for utter bollocks and to cut through the noise, they’ve opted for bold strokes and provocative statements. Case in point? Well, the album title, the album cover, a large quantity of their lyrics, and on-the-nose track titles like ‘Drugs’, ‘Powerful People’, ‘Gods’, and ‘Buy and Sell’.

The result is that it’s clear they’re taking a stand against the man. But in doing so, they can’t help but conjure cognitive dissonance.The depressing truth is that it’s our default response to question their authenticity, motives, and musically, their ability to deliver on all of the above. In short: are Formation part of the problem, or part of the solution? Thankfully, it’s the latter. But there’s a smidge of the former to muddy the waters.

In a sentence, the band makes percussion-fuelled electro-pop with mantra-like lyrical delivery and a Christopher Walken-pleasing dosage of cowbell. Congrats if you got LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture, or other assorted DFA Records affilitates on your bingo card. From this side of the pond, there’s a touch of Primal Scream, Ian Brown, and Jungle also in the mix.

Where those references have chafed somewhat on previous releases though, the band has begun to wear them with a loose confidence.

‘Buy and Sell’ is driven by the band’s rhythm-section operating at its most kick-ass, veering almost into funk-metal realms as they push Will Ritson’s lead vocals to their limits as he strains to be heard over the top of it.

In counterpoint, ‘Gods’ is a downward shift in gear, adopting a more down-tempo, tropical groove. Ritson matches the overall airiness, his usual intensity taken down a notch and in turn allowing each nuanced texture and layer to be appreciated.

These different weapons in the band’s arsenal prove there’s real depth and variety to their sound, but it’s interesting that it’s ‘A Friend’, a song with its roots back in 2014’s debut white label, which shows off that depth best. In fact, it’s the record’s best track.

A sparse synth and cowbell loop lights the fuse, setting Ritson off for 32 bars, barely pausing for breath as he races through his most emotionally exposed lyrics and vocal delivery on the record.

By the time he’s unravelled the story of a relationship marked by conflict, loss and fractured belief in a frantic 90 seconds of metaphor and reportage, you’re fully on-board, introspection contrasting with musical exuberance to create a rich spectrum of emotions.

A momentary pause and the band launch themselves into two rounds of a punchy, catchy resonant chorus (“And when I’m alone you are my only friend”), finished by extended buoyant instrumental that adds to the overall sensation of enraptured breathlessness.

High order perceptive pop. Do check it out.

Further helping the cause is the production. Look at the Powerful People feels a little like being in a sauna. An underlying feeling of sweaty, anxious pressure carries throughout which - given the band’s intended subject matter - is actually a positive thing, at least in this instance.

The heat comes in ebbs and flows, but never dissipates completely, as studio babble and found-sound recordings fill in where moments of quiet would otherwise sit, keeping the band on simmer until the next hook or breakdown.

In collaboration with some astute track arrangement, this approach allows the band to build momentum throughout the record, which finally releases with the lo-fi euphoria of closing track ‘Ring’, purposefully the only track over five minutes in length.

So, if Formation believe that an album or a dancefloor is as good a place as any to spark a revolution, they have the raw tools to do the job. Where the revolution struggles to fully gain a foothold though, are the lyrics.

“I mean it people, please believe me.” It’s clear that as Ritson states on ‘Pleasure’, they definitely do 'mean it'. He’s a firm believer in the power of music and musicians as individuals to make change and there’s buckets of zeal and conviction in his delivery.

The issue is well, the issues. Capitalism, corruption, and crises of culture are complex, but they’re often presented in overly simplistic terms on Look at the Powerful People. Here’s a selection: “buy and sell, buy and sell, and go to hell”; “he was everything that I despised, trying to cut a deal”; “with no pain, on cocaine, you half-brain”.

All of which harks back to that opening discussion about bullshit and bandwagons. The net impact of these occasionally misfiring political zingers is to undermine the whole. When the objective is to make you feel empowered, they instead leave you feeling a little underwhelmed and pulled out of the moment. All of a sudden the band’s logo – a potentially iconic symbol of broken chains – starts to feels more Anti-Flag than Fugazi. And there’s a world of difference between the two.

Despite their problems though, Formation are undeniably part of the solution.

As they implore us to Look at the Powerful People, Formation have a two-fold objective. On the one hand of course, there’s the powers that be, “stuck in their wonderful world” and in need of getting “what they deserve”. Formation want to give it to them. But they want to give it to them alongside the people themselves, the people who have the “power in their eyes”, not their pockets. It is these the band wants us to really look at, learn from, liberate and be liberated by. It’s a message we all know, but it’s one that needs constant reminders, as now more than ever, we need to speak truth to power, and we want our artists to do it too.

Formation do it with a propulsive intention and force that’s primed for headphones, festivals and rallies alike. So whilst the fire might need more kindling before it can truly become a beacon, the potential and ambition cannot be faulted.

The Guardian 60

(Warner Bros/Meno)

As the career of rappers the Mitchell Brothers illustrates, an endorsement from Mike Skinner is no guarantee of success. The Streets star’s current favourites, south London band Formation – founded by twins Will and Matt Ritson – might have been a more enticing proposition had they emerged in the early 00s. Their snarling debut album, all cowbells and warped grooves, is competent punk-funk that rarely deviates from the model established by the Rapture and LCD Soundsystem, whose vocals singer Will slavishly imitates. But while the opener, Drugs, is Formation at their worst – sloganeering masquerading as analysis – the supple Blood Red Hand proves they could be far more than bit-part players in a genre that peaked 12 years ago.

Pitchfork 42

Let’s start with the name: whether it’s Hillary Clinton or some clueless piano bro posting covers on YouTube, many have been accused of co-opting the unimpeachable power of “Formation” under dubious pretenses. For Matt and Will Ritson, it is at least plausible that they’ve never heard the song. On Look at the Powerful People, Formation sound directly teleported from a time when Destiny’s Child was still Beyoncé’s main source of income. It is the most 2003 album of 2017, so convincing a simulacra that having a Mike Skinner-directed video is one of the least time-stamped things about it.

Anyone under 21 reading this review would’ve been in elementary school when “House of Jealous Lovers” dropped, so to clarify, “2003” essentially translates to “dance-punk.” It was a time where DFA lorded over cool, LCD Soundsystem mocked classic rock before they became it, the jeans were tight, the riffs were angular, bassists were minor celebrities, and cocaine use started to become a little too unironic. Regardless of how well any of it has aged, exciting things tend to happen when guitar bands intermingle with dance producers. And Formation’s got themselves a hell of a co-sign. Look at the Powerful People is co-produced by house mastermind Leon Vynehall and he’s not the kind of dude who just makes himself available. Take the C.V. of Formation’s live band into account, and they boast connections to Caribou, Floating Points, and Fela Kuti. One of their earliest singles basically ripped off “Dance Yrself Clean”; they’ve opened for Jagwar Ma and Foals. They’re a dance-punk band that isn’t hesitant about reaching the cheap seats and one that won’t set you back six figures on Stubhub.

Distill that last paragraph down to proper nouns and it looks like a screenshot from a pretty kickass festival poster, doesn’t it? And damned if Formation sounds like they can make good on that promise. Look at the Powerful People blasts off with gigantic, boom-clap synth-drums, soon overlain by syncopated cowbell and a cable-thick bassline, all of it saying, this is happening. This kind nostalgia might be about two years too early. But most indie rock is playing smallball right now, and suffice to say, Look at the Powerful People begins with 54 of the most exciting seconds of music I’ve heard in 2017.

And then they start talking. “I’m on the list/Where do I sign up-uhhh,” brother Will sings, but that uhhh turns out to be the most interesting thing he has to say. “With no pain, on cocaine, you half-brain,” he goes on, “I got the cash, so don’t get tough/It’s not greed, just give me the stuff.” This song is called “Drugs” and it’s about drugs, probably. The greater likelihood is that it’s about something bigger than that—the frivolity of capitalism? The emptiness of festival culture? Is it about how drugs are actually bad? Is it not as smart as it thinks it is, or nowhere near as dumb as it should be? Either way, it carries about half of the resonance of Weezer’s “We Are All on Drugs” as a piece of social critique.

But is it really fair to harp on lyrical deficiencies in a style of music where Luke Jenner was once considered profound? It’s less of an issue when Formation hit the Hacienda during the album’s midsection, although their grooves make them come off like a flabbier Friendly Fires. The moralizing of “Buy and Sell” and “Gods” could damn near pass for backpack rap, and about that album title—“Look at the powerful people/Stuck in their wonderful world/Who is gonna to help them?” Ritson yells and, seriously, all the powerful people. Look at them!

It’s not like these guys planned to end up being a slightly more woke version of the Music: the bibliography of Look at the Powerful People includes Lightning Bolt, ESG, the Postal Service, John Coltrane, Rammellzee and that’s just the half of it. An awesome record collection doesn't make anyone a geopolitical expert, but c’mon: Ritson is somehow telling a crossroads origin story on the abysmal ballad “Blood Red Hand”—and that’s the one Formation said is influenced by “Purple Rain.” But even if their taste is impeccable, they’re a 2003 band with the most 2017 of problems—the current state of political affairs is making everyone feel a type of way and it’s easy to confuse that for actually having something to add to the conversation. Then again, the American military is just as deep in its 2003 nostalgia, so this probably is the political dance-punk the times demands. Or at least proof that every generation gets the Radio 4 they deserve.