GutterPutter

Gumshoes is the British musical project of Birmingham-based singer-songwriter Sam Sparks whose works always lean towards whimsical concepts. Much like the Mountain Goats, Fishboy, or the Alan Parsons Project, Sparks’s themes are both diverse in the premise he wants to tackle and fun in how it willingly embraces chamber pop to help with its direction. The main result thus is a distinctively twee musician who wears the seeming innocence of Belle and Sebastian and They Might Be Giant’s humour like his suit and tie. All the while, he would add in bits of vocal harmonies that would remind one of the Beatles.

Bugs Forever is the latest out of what is already shaping up to be a prolific discography. Its main premise imagines an apocalyptic event happening that wipes mankind off of Earth with only the titular bugs to witness the aftermath of their extinction. As the fourth album released since starting off in late 2021, Sparks already has his ears set on certain stylistics. First and foremost, his focus on chamber pop, as mentioned previously, leans more toward the more light-hearted exuberance like Japanese Breakfast than the grandness of Arcade Fire. Secondly, his lyrics balance admissions of fear, uncertainty, negativity with sardonic irony that almost wholeheartedly welcome juvenility. Last, he loves to sing from wildly different perspectives be it from moths to flies to even the mythic cryptids; it’s almost his favourite gimmick which helps to freshen his songwriting. You can start with ‘Little Things’ as a bit of a start although ‘Bad Omens’ and ‘Paradise is Green’ are both other noteworthy tasters to get ready for what could come later.

This means that so much of the tracks in the record happen to not embrace the forlornness of the event so much as to pique curiosity over the newfound civilisation that will arise. ‘Cockroach Song’ begins with the shockwave of terror over witnessing nuclear warfare, yet the shanty-like playing of the horns and the la-la-ing for the chorus makes for a wholly charming intro. Following that, ‘Can’t Complain’ waltz along with the piano as the lead instrument and the harpsichord alike to the bass (even though such an instrument is present) as the beetle resolves to be stoic during nuclear winter. ‘Supermoon’ has a faint organ chord in the background which almost imitates the clear flapping of wings in the empty new world. ‘Settle Down!’ stands out for its jubilant fast-tempo melody in its keyboards as the narrating spiders ponder about aspects of the human experience like nostalgia, memorabilia, and marriage. It’s so twee in the way that it’s been executed, especially with the layering of the bassline and the militant snare beat, that it’s tempting to play this on an actual wedding as previously done by the Police.

As hinted, the lyrical content often carries an acknowledgement of the grim reality of the apocalypse, but it buries it with considerably “cutesy” tunes and choruses. This means that a lot of the album depends on dissonance for a lot of both its entertainment and for its theme which is the possibility of life continuing in the face of its seeming end. In ‘The Floor is Yours’, there is a near-romantic inflection alike to the Smiths’ Morrissey which is helped by the finger playing of the acoustic guitar. Yet, there’s a tinge of melancholy in knowing that there’s little music to be found when mankind is wiped out as evidenced by the dying out of the keyboards after the lament that “[the] world is out of chords”. The titular track is so open with the celebration that a new civilisation might arise that it borders on black comedy. The previous hints to insinuate that humanity had died off due to mutually assured destruction however forebodes that the cheers will bury the cycle of violence that would lead to their demise. Then you have ‘Alexandria’ where the more minor keys and melancholic atmosphere feels funereal to both the permanent cessation of an oft-imagined myth like the cryptids and the erasure of our culture and arts. It’s definitely a sombre turn of tone from the rest and it’s drastic to the point of being slightly detrimental without a hint. 

The final two tracks of the album alongside ‘Little Things’ are arguably the best aside from ‘Settle Down!’ If you struggle to buy the overall fun-ness of Sparks’ music, then Bugs Forever will sell you with three back-to-back-to-back maestros in infectious songwriting and contrapuntally twee stylistic. ‘Little Things’ has a distinctively jangly sense in its guitar and its use of the cymbals strongly pulls tight the sheer levels of musical dissonance in witnessing the end of the world as we know it (in a slightly symbolic sense). The little inclusions of other instrumentations soothe the anxiety which matches the anti-nihilistic acceptance in the end that is resuming your life when it’s clear that you can’t control what will happen. ‘Playing Pretend’ takes the progression to the next level, leaning more towards indietronic synths and hollering claps by the time the cathartic refrains come through to push through with life. Especially with its six-minute runtime, it’s a notably lengthy journey which pays off in all its little wonders. Finally, ‘Suckers’ sees the pronounced violin be at play which is catchy as hell, accompanying the organ in the final bitterly hilarious plea for the human race to return home. Suffice to say, maybe it’s time to adapt and move on?

I first learned of Gumshoes from r/indieheads where Sparks would promote his music with positive reactions from several users. Similar to Hayday, the two artists are relative diamonds in the rough with what they can pull off. While Hayday largely beckons to slacker rock with well-executed but familiar tropes, Gumshoes sought to pull twists and turns on his music to make for a Dahl-esque story on the many facets of whatever weird world he imagines. Bugs Forever is proof that such a direction should have paid off a long time ago and while it’s not by any means the most intricately crafted record or the most lush, it’s ridiculously entertaining. Almost as a bucket-full of fun as the Unicorns if you ask me. Fans of chamber pop should give this a go even if they might not exactly feel that it’s wholly unique, ambitious, whatever apex we’re aiming for. It’s enjoyable even in its pits of gloominess.

4/5