Public Service Broadcasting - The Race for Space

Public Service Broadcasting
The Race for Space
2015

Concept albums can go one of two ways. They can either hold to tight to the idea and the music suffers, or the concept is so mired in everything else around it that it loses any impact. None of that is true for Public Service Broadcasting's newest record The Race for Space. Using speeches, audio recordings and other media from the space race of 1957-1972 and layering them over what can only be described as transcendent indie electro-rock creates something enchanting. You become transfixed by not only the great music being played, but the story being told from the people who lived it. The music serves as a backdrop to something bigger even though it is just as special. The music itself is able to breathe and grow around the media. "Sputnik" in particular ebbs and flows working almost as a rave track complete with a climax and a cool down until the end of the song. "The Other Side" puts you completely on edge as Apollo astronauts slip behind the moon and go fuly radio silent, then a joyous moment as they re-emerge connecting with Earth once again. The music is just as exuberent and excited for the Men's return from the void.

The Race for Space is more than an album and it's more than a historical tale, it's the combination of both and so very much more. "Go!" brings out the excitement that the Space Race had and the ideas of peace, humanity and exploration. The higher mindedness of the time period is quite evident from the speeches despite the fact that it was a competetion between Russia and the USA to see who could get where faster. For the everyday people not the politicians it meant much more, something we have unfortunately lost over the years. Politics aside, history aside, Public Service Broadcasting are simply amazing musicians. It's almost Mars Volta esque in the grand scale of their performance, but it is much closer to modern indie rock than Mars Volta. There are very few records that should be required listening, this however is one of them. Stop reading and listen, now.

9.5 out of 10