‘It goes on’ by Westside Cowboy
Words by Milly Nicholson
I've listened to Westside Cowboy's 'It Goes On' constantly since getting this brief, which is either a mark of an incredible album or a particularly effective piece of editorial coercion- thankfully, its the former.
The debut from the Manchester four-piece arrives with the kind of momentum most bands would spend years trying to manufacture: being Glastonbury Emerging Talent winners, tours with Geese and Black Country, New Road, released two very well recieved EP's and a steadily expanding reputation in a genre they've dubbed 'Britainicana'.
'It Goes On' is most exciting when you forget the trajectory all together. This is not a band anxiously trying to prove that the hype was justified.
That sense of of spontaneity is central to Westside Cowboy. The band formed without much of a grand plan, initially getting together to play covers before their songs began arriving in a rush. Their sound has since stretched country, folk, skiffle, punk and indie rock into something that feels recognisably British without ever becoming self-conciously so.
Throughout the album, those ingredients stop looking like a list of influences and start behaving like a newly discovered language. Guitars jangle and scrape; drums push songs forward with barley contained impatience; the most beautiful harmonies appear when the whole thing threatens to come apart. There's a heavy looseness to it, but it's far from slopiness somehow. Westside Cowboy make precision feel accidental.
'Kick Stones (The Boys)' is a great example. Rather than sanding down the song's live energy for the studio, the band leaned into it, using a live performance as the basis for the recording. The result feels less like a polished single than a memorable night in a room that happened to be captured on tape and it's done excellently.
Elsewhere, the album's country and folk touches never settle into costume. There are cowboy guitars, sure, but nothing remoteley obvious or stereotypical of the genre. Westside Cowboy have somehow taken numerous genres and have made them their own.
This is music made by people whose surroundings are Manchester, whose references are scattered across decades of records, and whose idea of Americana has clearly passed through a very British filter- resulting in an incredible and unique piece of art.
That contradiction is what makes the 'Britainicana' label work. It could easily have been a bit of press language, but instead, it feels like a genuinley useful descriptive label for the band and this album. Taking the mythology of the American road, the twang of country music and the charge of folk, then dragging it through rainy pavements, cheap pints and the absurdity of being young in Britain these days.
Most importantly, 'It Goes On' is fun. Not 'fun' in the disposable sense but in the older sense of music sounding like something worth being invested in again. You can hear four people responding to each other in real time. You can hear the songs speeding up. You can hear the moments where the arrangements come close to tipping over and somehow land exactly where they should.
There are plenty of bands being described as the next big thing right now. Westside Cowboy are more interesting than that. 'It Goes On' doesn't sound like an album from a band wanting to become something- it sounds like a band already having figured out what they enjoy.
So yes, I've been listening to it on repeat.
I suspect i'll still be listening to it after i've finished this piece.
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