Alt-J

The Polarizing Rise of ∆

High Praise Begets Harsh Criticism for British Art-Rockers Alt-J

By Andrew Clayman
Published in The Nashville Scene, March 2013

Are the members of Alt-J really just ordinary blokes? And if so, can we forgive them for it?

Such ridiculous questions would likely dog any art-school band that (1) names itself after the Microsoft Windows key command for the delta symbol, (2) gets dubbed “the next Radiohead” in various hyperbolic blog posts, and (3) sees its debut album win the 2012 Mercury Prize for UK Album of the Year. In the case of Alt-J, however, the obligatory backlash and authenticity debates seem less focused on the group’s actual music, and more on the lads themselves—with critics taking aim from both ends of the spectrum.

To the indie-rock press—long time admirers of the commercially un-ambitious and mysteriously aloof—these four friends from Leeds University just seem frustratingly out of sync with their usual parade of heroes.

Take drummer Thom Green, for example—the architect of many of those exotic time signatures the blogosphere went batty for on Alt-J’s 2012 album, An Awesome Wave. When asked about his band’s enormous 2013 touring schedule (they will be traveling back and forth from Europe to North America at least eight different times), Green is quite straightforward about the battle plan.

“We could be bigger in America, certainly,” he says, speaking on behalf of his bandmates Joe Newman (guitar/vocals), Gwil Sainsbury (guitar/bass), and Gus Unger-Hamilton (keyboards). “We have a goal of doing well there, and I think this tour could make or break that. It’s just a great opportunity for us.”

Heresy! Thom Yorke would never have been so transparent about his hopes for breaking the American market! No wonder Pitchfork Media gave An Awesome Wave a less-than-awesome 4.8 rating and a scathing review, using populist quotes from the band as evidence for their lack of artistic integrity, and citing “extraneous sparkle” as a cover-up for what were otherwise “draining, elongated MOR tunes.”

Surprisingly, though, Green doesn’t really sound like a poser intent on achieving some kind of Coldplay-level celebrity status. In fact, he seems fairly pleased that Alt-J has avoided a lot of the over-exposure that so many upstart UK bands experience.

“Overall, we got to where we are by making the kind of music we want to hear and working hard at what we do, not by selling our souls and being on the cover of NME every week.”

Now that’s the sort of underdog philosophy that ought to help out a band’s street cred. Unfortunately, it also just seems to put Alt-J in the crosshairs of a different set of harsh critics—those dwelling above ground in the mainstream music media. Neil McCormack of the Daily Telegraph, for example, went as far as to call the band’s Mercury Prize victory a “nail in the coffin” of the annual award, noting that the “obscure Leeds quartet” had created more “cerebral, arty, scruffily independent music that serious music cognoscenti admire but fewer and fewer people actually buy.”

To review then, the guys in Alt-J are simultaneously too complex and independent for a pop music prize and too middle-of-the-road and compromising for an indie stamp of approval.

“I mean, what can you say to that?” Green says with a laugh. “Reading stuff like that, we can only find it amusing, really, because we never set out to be labeled in any kind of way. So for somebody to think about it that much—to actually say we’re ‘too cerebral’ to win a prize—I don’t know. I guess they’re entitled to their opinion. And the Pitchfork review… it seemed as if we personally offended them somehow. It was just like, ‘could you possibly hate anything in life as much as you hate our album?’ [laughs] I honestly can’t understand how we got a 4.9 or whatever. It seemed like a zero would have been more in line with what was written.”

The good news for Alt-J-- as they bring their Awesome Wave back across the Atlantic—is that an old adage still rings true: “the more people you’re pissing off, the more you must be doing something right.” And with a slew of festival appearances and sold out shows at increasingly larger venues, the evidence seems pretty convincing. They might not be the next cult heroes or the next chart toppers, but ∆ is going to be around for while.