Diagrams – led by former Tunng main-man Sam Genders – waste no time in kicking off their album with a sound entirely Snow Patrol-esque. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, after all it is through the field of influence that we discover new bands. I, personally, found Defeater through reading about La Dispute. Yet, when the second song also recalls Final Straw-era Snow Patrol it becomes difficult to discern whether this is a conscious choice or not.
So, track 4 – ‘Chromatics’ (the title track) – sounds less like Snow Patrol and more like Bon Iver, but there I go again, comparing the band to another band. Which raises the inevitable question: is there any potential for originality left, or are we all indebted to an inherent logic of reconstruction? I’d argue that there are a few highly-original bands left – take Cornish noise-merchants Kaninchen for example, who have received little to no hype despite breaking the mould – but there is a mass-fear of something ‘different’ so we strive to invoke patterns and themes that we adhere a sense of recognition to.
‘Dirty Broken Bliss’ sounds like a Take That effort left on the cutting room floor with Gary Barlow suggesting something a little more bland. Yet, if this is where Diagrams get their influence from – an assortment of successful pop and indie-pop acts – then, yeah, sure, why not, they’ll be a genuine success, and they aren’t harmful at all, just not particularly ground-breaking.
I have a theory that influence works best when outside of a realm of expectation. Take a look at 50 Cent, a rapper influenced by rap, and you can instantly hear a generic repetition of unoriginality. Look at metal bands like Bullet for My Valentine, emo-metal influenced by emo-metal, again it transcends into a spiral of failed efforts to recreate history. However, when somebody is influenced by more far-reaching inspirations – Elliott Smith loved sections of Elton John and Chicago as much as he liked the wistful acoustic types that played music similar to his – and you can sense a difference, something much more interesting.
Less recreation, less reconstruction, more subversion. Please?
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