We Were Promised Jetpacks. Prior to hearing a second of their music, I had a confident inkling from their title that these guys were clever, dynamic, and innovative. Adam Thompson (vocals/guitar), Michael Palmer (guitar), Sean Smith (bass), and Darren Lackie (drums) are all from Edinburgh, Scotland. They also happen to be the fabulous four in We Were Promised Jetpacks.
The band formed in 2003, yet would not settle for an album less than perfect. By June 2009, WWPJ finally released their first studio album titled These Four Walls. After gaining some ground in ’09, they further expanded their breadth with an EP titled The Last Place You’ll Look in March 2010 and another studio album titled In the Pit of the Stomach last month under the Fat Cat Records label company.
From In the Pit of the Stomach comes the song “Act on Impulse.” The first 2:13 of the song is purely instrumental. A purely instrumental collage of lucid progressions, heartfelt thumps, and a cycling tempo – all simplified by the natural effects of guitar and drum.
With a collection of strings and pulses so synchronized and wholesome, “Act on Impulse” could stand alone as a background narration to a life – and with this comes the similarity to the works of Explosions in the Sky. But at the point when Thompson comes in singing with the message, “we act alone, we act on impulse,” things get real. Natural background music adds the element of human touch, which furthers the weight of emotion and captures every inch of reality.
The relentlessness and struggles they speak of in their music comes from somewhere, but where? Surely it is their curiosity and apparent ease of creating masterpieces that makes them so destined for recognition, but where does this curiosity come from? There’s only one logical explanation for these desires: these fellas from Edinburgh are still waiting for those jetpacks.