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- BBC Jessica Review -
Elliott Minor - 'Jessica'
Fraser M 31 Jul 07, 09:10 AM
One of the great lies/misunderstandings of the original 1970s punk rock explosion was that musical proficiency - the ability to play your instruments and sing - is a bad thing. I say 'misunderstanding', because lots of the key punk bands were actually pretty tasty players (trust me, that's how musicians actually talk), but were considered to be dunces by the rock press because they didn't play deliberately obtuse jazz skronk in tricky time-signatures. The original idea behind the punk movement was that anyone could be in a band, if they had a forward-thinking attitude, a good look, and (this is the the really important bit) some really good IDEAS.
Of course, down the years that's been obscured by idiots who just want to wallow in their own stupidity, but that's not music's fault.
Which brings me to Elliot Minor, former choristers from York with a public schoolboy sort of name (you oiks might not know that if your surname is Elliot, and you're at a posh school with your elder brother, he'll be called Elliot Major, and you'll be called Elliot Minor). Their soon-to-be breakthrough single fizzes with punk energy, but is structured so's to spiral up toward the very heavens, rather than break down the fabric of society.
And the key to all this lies in their choirboy past. Not just because of the vocal seriousness and harmonic warmth - there's at least one fret-shredding guitar hero in the band after all, so it's not like this is a rock version of the theme to The Vicar Of Dibley.
No, the hint of cassocks and cathedrals comes more from the cunning, well-placed shifts from major to minor and back again as the verse inflates into the chorus and the chorus lifts from one plateau (the "walk into the night" bit) to another ("superstar, you mean so much to me"). Up and up it goes, getting bigger and brighter and more dramatic with every passing bar...and then there's a guitar solo.
If you've ever heard a choral recital, you'll recognise some of the tricks the Minor are using here, and this is where throwing aside the Great Punk Lie is essential. Even though the distance between this and what Muse do is, well, no distance at all, it still has the fresh feeling of a bunch of choirboys innocently making what they know best work in a louder and more vulgar context, and accidentally hitting on a genius idea in the process.
Which is pretty close to the original spirit of the punk thing, ACTUALLY...
tdwp.net 
