Next month sees the return of My Best Unbeaten Brother with new album Pessimistic Pizza on Audio Antihero. A collection of “seven songs by three men from Croydon,” as guitarist and vocalist Ben Parker describes, “inspired by getting older, getting sadder, getting angrier with a post-Brexit world where The Smiths have been ruined by the actions of the ex-singer.” Lead single ‘Time on Our Hands, Spider-Man’, which we recently called “a mid-to-late-00s style indie rock song electrified with desperate emotion,” tapped into the ambiguous mood of this milieu. Where melancholy, nostalgia and cynicism never quite manage to extinguish the belief that something better might just be possible, however misplaced it might be.
But in many ways, despite what its title might suggest, Pessimistic Pizza is an optimistic record. One made in a country coming apart at the seams yet unable to fully embrace its impending doom. Both Ben Parker and Ben Fry are now fathers, and something in the milestone led a change of focus. Efforts to be self-aware and cool have been parked for something more sincere, if only to try and add something positive into a world descending down the drain. New single ‘Extraordinary Times’ is a direct call to arms in this regard, choosing to take all of its uncertainty and anger and channel into a sense of forward motion. If only to prove steps can still be made in that direction.
Photo by Tony Robertson