In the grace of your love / I see you shining inside / In the grace of your love / No one can ever die

“In the Grace of Your Love” by the Rapture seems to be another album that slipped under (my) the radar in 2011 from another very well-known band of some repute. Will we look back at 2011 and think of its amazing richness of music as a landmark year? Sometimes I think not because there was just too much going on…

I know The Rapture best from the title track of their 2003 album “Echoes”.  I’m a massive fan of Misfits and can listen to that song ad nauseum. “Pieces of the People We Love”, their album after that, I know was lauded amongst some of my friends as one of the albums of the decade. Yet I didn’t/couldn’t really get it into it.

Seems a good time to try and rectify the Rapture balance by giving ITGOYL a good listening to (they’re fans of long album titles aren’t they?).

The album opens with the disco-punk stylings of “Sail Away” which is Magazine meets Donna Summer – I can see why people like them, they blend the best of different genres and come up with something totally fresh. It’s pretty meteoric in scale and it’s certainly a statement of intent, as album openers go. The only thing that slightly annoys is the tone of his voice, he does have a slight shrieking quality in his voice from time to time (and not only in this song). However, with the last minute to go it slips into something that sounds like a Turkish piece of music or perhaps an homage to Phillip Glass imitating the music of the sea. It’s almost as if the band is saying “Yes we’re a pop group, but we’re also something more and something avant-garde.”

“Miss You” and the crazy Russian-punk-disco (that’s the beats and accordion) “Come Back to Me” signal a lovelorn theme to the album, not dissimilar to The Walkmen’s Lisbon. However, the lyrics in “Miss You” seem to suggest that while the narrator misses the person they love, but “broken dreams and broken faces/I've run all the darkest races” suggests that there has been a toxicity or destructive quality to the relationship. “In the Grace of Your Love” and “Never Die Again” continue the lovelorn feeling – all of these songs point to this being a struggle with God and with Death, rather than a lover who has left.

I love the falsetto in “Blue Bird” – the song definitely has a Beach Boys feel to it (well, Beach Boys crossed with The Only Ones). It’s the surfing song of the album, the repeated line “I’ll see you on the other side” (as if it’s the other side of the wave), compelling us to look at the album cover in its 60s black and white glory.

“Children” is definitely a crowd-pleaser – and comes pretty close to a pop song. Is he saying that he and his girlfriend should have kids together? Nice way to win over the girl. Indeed, most of the songs are beat-heavy and head-nod-worthy, until you get to the final song “It Takes Time to Be A Man”. It’s almost like a coda: the song has a rockabilly feel to it, perhaps it’s the piano and guitar, but the drums are muted and quiet and then there’s the choir at the end, complete with hallelujah’s, taking you upwards.

“How Deep Is Your Love” is the best song on the album (no doubt it’s the first single). The piano is bombastic and the beats as good as any house tune out there. You get the feeling (redolent in other songs) that there’s almost a religious feeling to the song – it’s incredibly joyful and hands in the air. “Give me what I need to live/Let me come to you”.

On the whole this is an album I shake my head at – and wonder why I didn’t pick up on it earlier. It’s foot-stamping good fun, yet there is a depth and quality to it too that makes me question; the lyrics are enough to make me wonder, what does he mean? Is there something more? There’s a definite dance versus punk feeling going on as good as any LCD Soundsystem album. As Pitchfork say it so well: “This album is about sustained, earned love, as well as the forgiveness inherent in it.”

The Rapture @ Wikipedia

In the Grace of Your Love @ Metacritic

Pitchfork Review

Guardian Review