I Have Forty-Four Minutes To Explain Why You Will Be Going Out And Buying "Hate" On Monday

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Great song titles aren't always an indicator of great songs. Take -dis's The Historically Troubled Third Album for example. Just the album title alone is enough to make you pick it up and give it a quick once-over. Then you'll see songs like "You May Get All The Ladies But I Got My Shit Together," "Do All The Good Ones Have Muslim Names?," and "Please Stop Blaming Your Personal Problems On Films" and think it's something you need to hear. But you couldn't be more WRONG. -dis may or may not have been a great band at one point, but they laid down flat for Steve Albini and let him ruin it all.

Normally, I'd agree with you - but I just can't believe that this album is going to be bad. If I don't at least love those two tracks, I'm going to be very surprised.

You will love All You Need Is Hate. It's perfect.

The album opener is The Light Before We Land. It is great. It is beyond great. It's fucking astounding. You see, there's bands that try for majestic. Embrace, for instance. Coldplay. And, to a certain extent, Mercury Rev. The Dark Is Rising, for instance, is not that bad a song, but that string sweep at the start just feels a bit... dubious. As string sweeps go, it's brilliant, this titanic thing that heaves into view, and hearing it at three in the morning on Radio 2 is certainly an experience to remember, but it feels so horrendously contrived at the same time. That Polyphonic Spree album really rubbed me up the wrong way, the way he just seemed to babble about how 'soon, you'll find the won-durrr' without actually having any of it at all...

But this isn't it. Victoria Segal, as mentioned earlier, reckoned that without the strings The Great Eastern was a big nothing of an album, all fluff and no substance. Anyone says that about Hate is missing the point to such a huge degree...

The Light Before We Land, then. Described elsewhere by me as the best opening song on an album ever. This does not have a string sweep. This has strings gliding in, slowly, subtly, then it's got a choir going 'aaah-ah-ah-aaaah... aaah-ah-ah-aaaah (ah-oh-oh-ah)'. Now, The Delgados' track record with choirs isn't fantastic, considering the godawful tacking on of a kids choir at the end of the single release of No Danger, but this time it works, and it works so well, cos it leads into this huge drum beat - it's sort of biblical, in a way, it feels like when it hits it's parting the waves of this gigantic ocean by virtue of its sheer hugeness...

I'm going Ceefax here. Cripes. Anyway. The Light Before We Land shouldn't be divvied up into component parts, because it's all those bits - the strings, the drums, the choir, and Emma Pollock, on whom more later - and it's so complete. It's an intensely, beautifully extravagant record. Where others settle for polyester and formica, The Light Before We Land is only the finest quality materials, and it glistens, gleams and shimmers in the moonlight. This is the sound of greatness, gliding through the stars, like Homer's dream when he falls asleep at the wheel, but you never wake up to find you've driven through a fence at the other end...

cos what you get at the other end is Hate Is All You Need. While The Light Before We Land is in the running to be the best song The Delgados have ever done, this is the most exciting. This being because this is probably the best shot the Delgados will ever have at being huge. Now, the Delgados don't need to be huge. They've made great records before, and they are going to make great records again. Hey, if they're lucky they may even end up getting shafted by The Mercury Music Prize panel again. But you see so much indie shit getting acclaimed as greatness these days, In My Place, Pounding, Take The Long Road And Walk It, You Got The Style, and the people out there are going to think all guitar music has to be either thick or pretentious... and this song, this song could change all that. It's under three minutes, for a start, but better than that I managed to shoulder-barge it into the playlist for the uni radio station (ahead of the actual single choice, Coming In From The Cold), on the C-list. And it's sprouted wings and taken off. More or less every daytime show has played and loved it, and every time I've heard it my heart has jumped for joy and I have screamed "GET IN!!!" It's that kind of a tune. Another great opening, tinkling quietly as Alun Woodward sings over the top of it, no longer the moody shoegazer, now confident and right on top of his game, AND THEN THE CHORUS - "Hate is everywhere, come on people feel it like you just don't care... on your way to school, work or church you'll find that it's the only rule - you ask me what you need - Hate is all you need." The Dels go glam, and they pull it off like you'd never believe. Pray to fuck they have the sense to make this the next single. It has been two years since the last time I listened to the top 40 purposely to see where a new single would enter the charts. That was Black Box Recorder's The Facts Of Life, and from what I can remember I taped it and I should still have it - "A new entry at number 20..." Shame it was Scott Mills presenting it, but fuck it. I wanna do it again. And it's this, it's Hate Is All You Need. It's magnificent.

Anything following those two has a job on its hands. Woke From Dreaming is the poor wee lamb that has to do it, and it doesn't quite, but it gets bloody close. It's them going back to being understated, and in the right state of mind it's quite hypnotic, "You can do what you want if you are that way inclined". It's Emma Pollock again, and as such it's understated and dreamy in a really great but also quite sinister way. Also worth noting the last line is 'We will kill if we have to.' It could only ever pale in comparison to the previous two, but it's still more than capable of kicking Coldplay and Athlete's arses with both hands tied behind its back.

But what comes next is yet another song that is close to being their best ever, The Drowning Years. It's pretty much the best one Alun Woodward has ever done, super-ugleh and hard as nails - him and his demons have never been far from each other, and it's this that propels him to new heights here, a huge crasher of a chorus, he yells "Destroy the noises That make up the voices And Get them out of my head - Bring on the screaming And I'll take your demons Now That I'm already dead", being chased through the mansion in his mind by a million invisible ghosts, crash, crash, crash, The Delgados go dark and fantastic.

Coming In From The Cold sticks out like a sore thumb here. It's actually kind of happy, in a way, but something about this just isn't qutie right, it just doesn't feel as good as the rest of the album somehow, and as a first single choice it's deeply baffling. Still blows away most of the stuff on the radio, though, but not as hard as Hate Is All You Need would.

Now you get Child Killers. And it's not what you'd think it is - it's just over the six minute mark, from what I can remember, and it's probably the quietest track on here. It's also a bit gorgeous. Alun Woodward in resigned, mournful mode, and it's very minimal, just restricting themselves to a bit of Hovis trumpet near the end. It works very nicely, thank you.

Track Seven is Favours, and it's Emma Pollock back on form, this time as a doom-laden whirling dervish. You could see it as the follow up to Accused Of Stealing off the Great Eastern, the 'freewheeling' giving way to 'taking orders from bottles of wine' - "Help me to stand, Help me to say, That I don't wanna be here, I don't wanna stay, I'll just stay away". It's great as well - should've been ahead of Coming In From The Cold in the singles pecking order, in any case.

Then it's All Rise, probably the second weakest track off the album, and it's a bit like The Dark Is Rising, oddly enough - verses a bit weak, then huge motherfucker of an orchestral whoomph on the chorus. The Rev'd kill for it, but in this company it's a bit overawed.

Stemaing on towards the end, Never Look At The Sun finds Emma Pollock in her element. One of the most hideously underappreciated singers in modern popular music, she is. Gothic goddess, drunken harlot, evil temptress, hazy sunlit beauty... god, she's gorgeous. Fantastic guitar player too. Though she does have a face like a smacked arse most of the time. Anyhow - five minutes of overdriven evil fury, Pollock is fantastic, possibly bit overlong but outstanding nonetheless.

And the conclusion. So far, Hate has been the best album of the year, but a bad ending track could cock it all up. If This Is A Plan is a fantastic ending track. Alun Woodward has done his three best songs thus far on this album. This is probably his fifth best, but it still kicks so much arse, the chorus containing what feels like the most euphoric "Hallelujah! It's Finally Happening!" in the history of recorded music over the top of every single instrument they've ever used (which is a lot of instruments) as Woodward's vocal tears off into the distance, showing a complete disrespect for time signatures and rhythm and everything... triumph completed. Hallelujah indeed.

I may not have done a great job of explaining here. But, the thing is, this could well be the first album I've ever got expecting great things that has been even better than I thought it would be. No, actually, it is. Seeing it tossed off in the NME with some unthought 8/10 review while they splurge tons on that fucking charity album (AND THEY HAVE A HUGE FUCKING PHOTO OF STARSAILOR CUNT) makes it all that closer to my heart. It's the Delgados sounding so like the Delgados, making the best music of their careers, but knowing that there's going to be even better to some from them... great songs given all the love and affection they deserve.

It my not be all you need. But you need it all the same. This is the greatness. This is the true, proper greatness. For it to be seen as anything else is wrong beyond all comprehension.

or pre-ordered it on the Interweb!

It also sounds like an insane rant and although the album is quite good, I fail to see how it deserves so much froth.

quoting myself, how very tragic...sorry, but i just occurred to me that this phrase might suddenly put certain people off listening to Hate - do not, I repeat DO NOT let this happen!

I think the two albums sit deliciously well together from a Fridman point of view (although you'll know from Dave Fridman - one-trick pony? that I have certain reservations about even that) and offer two sides of a coin I'm always only too happy to find nestling deep in my pocket along with the lint and the half-melted sweets: psyche-whimsy vs hyper-reality, if you will.

What lets Hate down a little are the occasionally gauche lyrics on the part of, uh, the fella (references to "gak" are just WRONG), but really, it's a beauteous thing to behold, cracks an' all.