The first album was shouting out of your bedroom window at the world, says Sam Forrest, Nine Black Alps, willowy messiah, of the Manchester rockers thunderous debut ‘Everything Is’. It was the album I had wanted to make when I was younger, Nirvana, Pixies, Sonic Youth and all. Whereas this album is where I am now. ‘Love/Hate’ is the second album from Nine Black Alps, and its beautiful. It sees spleens vented, demons exorcised, and a band ready to take their rightful place at the summit of the Britrock’s own mountain range. ‘Everything Is’ was squarely the sound of a band from, of, and in Manchester. The latest in a succession, both noble and paranoid of music based in the rainy city’s unique position between the gutter and the stars.‘Love/Hate’ still rocks like a bastard, but it smells and sparkles more like the band’s (spiritual) homeland on the west coast of America. It’s the classic sound of optimism, of longing and of redemption, with beautiful layers of country to undercut the drama. I never think I get affected by surroundings, but I think it probably does. But the first one’s a very dark, hard album, whereas with the influence of Los Angeles, you learn to find the minor chords and the harmonies and put tambourine and pianos on things. It’s a good place in the world. This didn’t happen by accident. After years as the Golden Boy of Manchester’s reborn alternative community, Sam packed up all his books and all his vinyl, left Manchester and moved back to his hometown of York. I kept the vinyl, he concurs, But there’s an Oxfam in South Manchester that must have most of my life in there! Sam’s real life resolution wasn’t as violent as ‘Burn Faster’, but the album’s boisterous calling card also sees him pile up the baggage of what he knew as his life during those years, douse it with petrol and watch it go up in brilliant flames. It’s the perfect segment between these two chapters of the band. More the melancholy sort of thing. I heard ‘Burn Faster’ on the radio for the first time the other night, and it does sound sadder than a lot of records at the moment. It’s a feeling of reflection. That song’s trying to break a habit of violence.The violence in a song and self-destructive violence. Recognising it and being able to put it in a song you move beyond it. You kind of want to have a bit more self-respect. ‘Love/Hate’ really soars where the grunge in the Alps’ DNA intersects with blissful, sunkissed pop; Laurel Canyon meets The Lemonheads jammed through QOTSA’s fun machine. And the song you’ll be humming all the way into next year is the gorgeous ‘Bitter End’. The closest the Alps have ever come to a straightforward love song, its refrain of ‘Baby Come Down,’ will tug your heartstrings while making your heart sing.Sad song:It kind of is. It's like a goodbye to all of that. It’s fun, but at the same time I’ve had my fun. I want a different kind of fun. Goodbye to all that. But it was fun.
Then there’s the blissful, Beach Boys-inflected,’Future Wife’, written when Sam was struck down with the Mumps at the start of the ‘Everything Is’ campaign.
It obviously sounds very weary! It’s about the aspirations that you have. People say ‘oh I just saw my future wife’. Obviously you don’t know it, you just see the attraction. It’s that thing of wanting success, and success has a price. A lot of the album’s about realising that the good stuff’s probably usually closer to home I think.
Finding this level of (sorry) nirvana gave the fantastic four a soaring level of confidence in the studio. They recorded ‘Everything Is’ in Los Angeles as well, rolling round the Rainbow Rooms, living out their boyhood rock fantasies. This time round they hung out in Silverlake with new friends like Giant Drag and Silversun Pickups, and recorded what would become ‘Love/Hate’ with Dave Sardy (Oasis, Jet, Wolfmother) at his complex in the Hollywood Hills. Dave gave us a way of not recording the same album twice, says Sam of the producer. He was talking about The White Album by The Beatles., how there’s a lot of space in there. We talked a lot about dynamics.
For the first album when I was mixing it I told the mixing guy I didn’t want any different dynamics, I wanted compressed, flat, constant. With this one I wanted to have more drama in each song. ‘On a rock song we’d get the same amp, turn it up to ten and play it as hard as we can.Whereas this time round we thought let’s try an acoustic guitar, or let’s try a really crap amp.
Because we were there a lot longer we got to experiment with songs and to do the most obvious thing. It ended up sounding a lot more individual, and sweeter and richer. Sweet, rich, and rocking like a bastard. ‘Love/Hate’ even down to its enigmatic title, is about the polarities and opposites that add up to the richness of human experience. In fact, the only thing that ‘is’ constant throughout is its brilliance. This record sees Sam Forrest come of age as a songwriter, and Nine Black Alps graduate to rock’s premier league.