THE INNITS - EVERYTHING IS TRUE

„A grass of beer and a lot of shakalang
is our plaisir and that’s why we’re in a band.
No way is too long
no place too far away
no wind too strong
as long as we can play.“

These are the lines the debut album of The Innits, hailing from Berlin, begins with. Does the title they have picked for it – “Everything Is True” – leave any more questions? Not straightaway. The four-piece begins by lashing out some highly energetic hymns at the listener, lovingly combining Hüsker Dü with sixties beat. What follows is what sounds like the Smiths playing The Velvet Underground’s instruments, and that’s not the end of the list of possible associations.

The Innits are referencing music history in a very sophisticated way. What they deliver is not a pastiche, but an authentic renaissance with a very own flavour. Their weapons of choice are insistent guitars, Christopher Uhe’s (ex-member of Speed Niggs, Sharon Stoned and Floor) stripped-down and edgy production and dazzling singing harmonies, which sometimes remind the listener of the early Beatles.

And then there are the subtle lyrics, written by singer-drummer Mek Obaam, cheerfully telling about city cowboys failing to know their meters and bounds, about the debauches of teenage girls with rock stars or about the cons of boys refusing to grow up. A collection of amazing anecdotes rising from intoxication. But now and then hilarity gets interspersed with reflective passages: “Everything Is True”, the title track, depicts the consequences of gossip being handled carelessly. In “Light And Sound”, Mek Obaam describes in a crystal-clear way what keeps the world together at its very core, whereas in “Conversations”, sun and moon, day and night and heaven and earth enter a dialogue of almost biblical dimensions. This must be what happens if you don’t want to stop going out even if you’re beyond thirty – a mechanism seeking to salve consciences seems to come into effect. At the same time, debauchery becomes something precious. You begin to wallow.

Even if “Everything Is True” is located on such delicate grounds, it cannot be emphasised enough how much of a catching zest for life this record conveys. And when we hear its last line “It’s time I think I changed my life for you”, we would love to ask for the record to play on and on. But pensive heads and enlightened moments eventually have to pass.

After the release of a single on the Irish label Earsugar, “Everything Is True” is the Innits’ debut on Sunday Service. Songwriter Mek Obaam made his name as Schneider TM’s and Babara Morgenstern’s sideman and by hitting the drums for The Boggs from NYC. Guitarist and background vocalist Dirk Kretz also is a member of The Beautiful Newborn Children and Die Türen. The handsome four-piece is completed by Vincenzo Perrotta on guitars and Jannes Wurps on bass.