A crystal ball could have told you 30 years ago that the White brothers were destined to form a band together. Raised on a healthy diet of Bob Dylan, The Beatles and a big serving of ‘90s and ‘00s guitar bands, it feels preordained that the siblings – Felix, Hugo and Will – would convene to form 86TVs (named after another of their favourite bands: I Am Kloot), with the addition of drummer Jamie Morrison. And although the crystal ball predictions may have omitted the many notable projects that came before – The Maccabees for Felix and Hugo, Will’s solo project BLANc, time in The Noisettes for Jamie, alongside individual forays into producing, soundtracking and collaboration – it feels right that the brotherhood arrived at this point in their thirties. All roads taken were always going to lead here.
With so much of the band taking shape in private over the last six years, the accumulation of writing, recording and honing their sound sees the four-piece deliver an ambitious, varied self-titled debut. The body of work spanning anthemic guitar-led firecrackers through to delicate, dreamy ruminations.
Rousing album opener “Modern Life” welcomes the listener with open arms into the 86TVs gang via the White brothers’ blood harmonies (y’know, the kind of intuitive melding of voices that can only branch out from a family tree) and expansive instrumentation. The build of the collective vocals, reminiscent of “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire, creates a rallying openness despite the disconnected lyrical theme, laying foundations for both the jubilant guitar anthems to come (like singles “Higher Love” and “Someone Else’s Dream”) and the slower, more reflective moments on the record (“Komorebi”, “Dreaming”). The warbling guitars and punchy drums are an amuse bouche before being launched headfirst into “Tambourine”, a distorted guitar track that throws you around like a riptide, preventing you from coming up for air before abruptly ending and spitting you out, before ever reaching the 2-minute mark. The song’s DNA is firmly rooted in the hard-hitting, gritty bits of The Strokes’ “Room On Fire” record.
The opening two tracks are prime examples of 86TV’s ability to build complimentary yet contrasting moods and tempos in their signature sound, as well as showcasing their mastery at keeping tracks lean. Almost half of the 15 songs clock in at under 3 minutes long, indicative of the years spent refining these tracks, whittling away superfluous parts to leave only the prime cuts. The quick pace creates an urgency in many of the songs that feels like being driven at speed – a mood that is fittingly captured on “New Used Car”, which makes me want to stick my head out of a rolled down window and belt “Nothing lasts forever, gotta live for today!” into the blur of passing streets. The short and sweet songs punctuating the record create an energetic buoyancy around the more meditative, gentler songs, which offer their own soothing breathers.
A recurring feeling on the record is one of nostalgia, morphing and changing across various songs. The most immediate of these is “Days Of Sun”, a serotonin-inducing pop song that is as bright and dazzling as a long-stretching school summer holiday. The brothers’ harmonies are warm sunshine on the back of a white t-shirt, the bassline a dawdling bumble bee, and the percussion evocative of children playing drums on glass bottles and tin cans. If you close your eyes, you can almost summon the smell of suncream and freshly cut grass before the outro floats in the sounds of a kids’ playground. We’re then transported by the angst-fuelled “New Used Car” to remembering adolescent summers lovingly wasted away with friends that you’ve since drifted apart from. While “Need You Bad” tenderly channels melancholic wistfulness, reflective of summer heartbreak “spent in the arms of my best friends/They all said I’d get over you”.
Throughout their self-titled debut, 86TVs demonstrate an expertise in evoking emotion across the shifting backdrops of shimmering pop songs, stirring guitar-crammed anthems, and subdued moments of vulnerability; a maturity of songwriting and musicianship that is testament to their previous musical projects and brotherly instinct. The line “Where you’re stood is where you’re meant to be”, reassuringly declared in “Someone Else’s Dream”, feels like an embodiment of 86TVs. Everything has fallen into place when and how it should have, with all roads leading to this self-assured, confident body of work.
86TVs live:
15.-16.11.2024 Weissenhäuser Strand – Rolling Stone Beach
16.11.2024 Berlin – LARK