An Aussie rock earworm to rival The Killers
With or without a solid guitar solo...
You know, I’m something of an Aussie expert myself. From an interview with Sydney-based Olympic Ayres a few months back, to my teenage obsession with YouTuber Lachlan Power (you guessed it, he’s from Brisbane), watching Tim Cahill score his iconic volley against the Netherlands in the 2014 World Cup, or more recently: A memorable date with a Melbournian this summer—I can’t seem to get enough of the country and its silly little accents within. Oi oi oi, as they say.
Did I mention all the gun control & free healthcare?
Pretty sweet, just like this week’s entry in our journey along the FIFA 12 soundtrack: Break the Spell, a 2011 tune from Sydney group All Mankind.
Perhaps the most cliché interview question you can ask a band is about the origin of their name (and before you cause a ruckus, yes, I’ve done this): The Australian group’s stems from a lyric in the 1996 Pearl Jam song Mankind.
All Mankind was originally composed of Richard Beeston (vocals, rhythm guitar & keyboard), David “Dave” Beeston (drums), and Gavin Perkins (bass), first performing as an acoustic act called The Richard Beeston Band. You just gotta wonder how Dave and Gavin felt about that. Daniel “Dorny” Mayes (guitar) joined along in 2008 as the band shifted towards a larger rock-orientated sound. One name change later, All Mankind was officially born.
Ironically enough, touching on last week’s Alex Metric entry on the FIFA 12 soundtrack (check it out here if you haven’t yet), the Sydney four-piece also has a song with the name Open Your Eyes, the opening track on their 2011 album Simple Desire. Like Break The Spell on FIFA 12, this track also found success in getting syncs (if you’re not familiar with what a sync is in the music industry, check out this article). How about on a Jamie Oliver commercial during the 2010 Academy Awards? Better yet, on season 5, episode 11 of Gossip Girl? You betcha.
Onto the main event.
For one—it was good to hit play on a song that I in fact do remember, and find myself regularly spinning. That being said, Break The Spell fits into the echelon of FIFA tunes that I seem to have occasional bouts of amnesia about. I enjoy this song, yet if you caught me watching a Wolves (Wolverhampton Wanderers of the Premier League, for you non-soccer folk) game on a Saturday morning in Athens, Georgia at 7AM on a totally-not-pirated livestream, played it for me and asked me to name the title, I’d hesitate and have to think for at least 30 seconds.
I absolutely adore the keyboard riff that opens up this song. I gotta give Patrick the credit for this observation—it kinda has a steel drum vibe to it. It’s a pleasurable little riff that fades away as Beeston’s vocals take center stage. You’ll notice the keyboard comes back for all three post-chorus sections, which I think is such a nice touch. Even better, the non-intro keyboard appearances are paired with Beeston’s angelic, falsetto croonings, 🎵 only looooove survives 🎵.
One thing I’ll add—the post-chorus vocals on this track sound nearly identical to SpongeBob’s ballad, “Striped Sweater,” I just can’t unhear the similarity. Cursed.
Beeston’s vocal performance throughout is very reminiscent of an album very dear to Patrick’s heart: The Killers’ 2020 record, Imploding the Mirage. If you told me that Brandon Flowers was the lead singer of All Mankind, I’d probably accept it as fact. Knowing Patrick, he’d slap me right across the face. Yet, give the album a whirl after you listen to Break the Spell and tell me I’m wrong. Wanna get more controversial? I prefer this track to that entire Killers record.
Back to Beeston—across this track, it’s clear that he’s got a low tenor with solid range, and I especially dig how he does the chorus. If I ever catch myself with this song stuck in my head, it’s always the first chorus, where the drums and guitar pause, shining a spotlight on Beeston as he cries, “I’ve got you, you got me!”
Now, sonically, I don’t think this track takes a lot of risks, per se. It’s an enjoyable cut throughout, with standouts to me being the distinct cymbals throughout the choruses, the aforementioned keyboard cameos, and Beeston’s vocals. I didn’t even realize there was a guitar solo, after over a decade of spinning this tune, so imagine my amazement when I noted Patrick’s scathing comments on it (keep reading…). Now, guitar solo? Ehhhhhh—it seems more like a half-arsed bridge to me. In retrospect, perhaps The Richard Beeston Band as a name wasn’t as big of an ego trip as we thought, given Dorny’s (guitar) performance on this part.
This isn’t a track I’d necessarily put on display if tangentially attempting to describe the greatness of the FIFA 12 soundtrack to an unsuspecting first date. But, if I hit shuffle, and it came on? I wouldn’t be mad. They’d probably like it.
Now, over to Patrick—proud new owner of a Matt Bellamy body pillow (I had to bribe him after Open Your Eyes).
After the auditory assault of last week's track, my confidence in the "Greatest of All Time" (G.O.A.T.) status attributed to the FIFA 12 soundtrack has waned. Knowing Ethan's general taste in music meant I was suspicious of how good the songs would be from the onset, but Open Your Eyes still caught me off-guard.
In what I hope to be a sign of some good to come, the next song on the list, All Mankind's Break the Spell, is still on streaming services! While I am not trying to draw a direct line between a song's "goodness" and whether it is available on Spotify or Apple Music, a certain air of legitimacy and quality comes with this kind of publication.
As one last note, I was rough on the previous track, but I celebrate that Alex Metric and company put in the work and created a piece of art. This is all in good fun, and to paraphrase from We Hate Movies, it's okay to like a song.
Finding the time to sit down and give Break the Spell a proper listen was difficult, but I am glad I finally did. Although I may not be running to every person close by demanding that they listen to this song, I particularly enjoyed listening to it. Because this is such a massive improvement over Open Your Eyes, I like it more than I would typically have. Regardless, it is a well-produced, competently-written song that is enjoyable to listen to.
Beginning the song is a moment of silence that leads to the whole band coming in, establishing the song's central motif. Taking the melody role, the piano has an almost mysterious tone, with its heavy reverb and dark timbre. Supporting the piano line harmonically is an electric guitar playing chords with a little bit of overdrive distortion and delay on it. Interestingly, each sequence of the guitar's delay appears to switch which side of the mix it is on.
The initial attack is on the left, with an immediate playback on the right and vice versa.
The bass guitar is quite challenging to hear in the intro section of the song but does appear more prominently later. Underlying everything else are the drums, which are very active and have a great sound. The snare drum is complete, open, and snappy, giving it a punch in the mix. This was all promising to hear on the first listen.
As the intro ends, the piano disappears, and a filter is placed over the drums to have them take up less space sonically. A layer of heavy compression is put on them, so the vocals have room to shine, but the snare still makes its way through. This effect makes the rhythm section sound like it came from a drum machine rather than recorded instruments. In this section, the guitar abandons its harmonic role. It assumes a textural one with strums of muted strings providing that "chunking" sound. The vocals enter this section and are decent overall; I got strong Chris Martin from Coldplay and Bono from U2 vibes. The vocalist starts with short melodic phrasing in the first verse to be countered by a much longer, more open melodic delivery in the second. This pairing of a more staccato first section followed by a legato second is throughout the entire song.
A fun little drum fill takes us from the first verse into the second, where the texture changes quite a bit. The compression is removed, and the guitars start to play palm-muted notes rather than the chunking chords from before. This is where I finally heard the bass guitar; the tone is thick without being muddy and really adds to the song.
Suddenly everything goes silent for a moment, then the whole band comes back, leading into the first pre-chorus of the song. This trick is a cheat to add energy to a piece or make the listener feel like the intensity is rising, even if it remains the same. I don't have anything to say about the chorus; it is par for what the rest of the song has been leading us to. The guitars return to a full chord strumming style in the chorus.
Coming out of the chorus, we return to the intro just with falsetto vocals overtop. As mentioned before, verse three brings back the short melodic phrasing to counter the longer phrasing of verse four. This back-and-forth creates a lot of movement in the song that keeps it interesting, rather than having so much of the same for four minutes.
What I like about this song is that it doesn't feel copied and pasted; it's clearly written out from beginning to end and performed throughout.
Moving into the second pre-chorus, where there was the gap of silence, is now an echo of the last line sung. The second post-chorus is characterized by a tremolo effect on the guitar set to the left side.
My biggest disappointment in this song is the guitar solo; it feels like a placeholder. It's just one note played for most of a bar until the one directly above or below it is played. The solo could have just been a rip of the chorus melody. Instead, it's just bland.
The moments after the solo have the song's best-sounding, highest-energy-delivery vocals; the singer has much power in this section. The intro piano melody returns one final time, accompanied by falsetto vocals until the song's end. Residual feedback is ringing out until the song finishes; it adds to the organic nature of the track.
My overall thoughts are warm, if not a little tepid. This song perfectly serves as background music while playing a video game. It is best enjoyed if it is not the main thing of interest in a situation. Give it a listen while doing chores, and your activities will be elevated; If you listen to it independently, you might be underwhelmed.
Next up—an all-timer. We stay in the land down under, and throw some Architecture In Helsinki on the barbie, in the form of Escapee…listen below!
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