If May may also deem the record to sound like "a wedding reception band on acid" then Wedding Day is a trip brought about by something sour to the tongue that soon turns equally so to the ear, although it's one of few isolated instances of iffiness. For much of Do Things is smoother than the most polished of big day comb-overs: Tell Her sounds like Brian Wilson getting particularly high off of life whilst Mike Love plays hide the alcopop until his withered liver itself pops in a variegated explosion of blood, guts and bloody lurid horridness, whilst Best Friend channels chummy schmaltz into a quite woozy schmooze. Don't Wait is as though Adam Bainbridge fronting Chic B-side misplaced by Nile Rodgers somewhere or other in the recesses of the late-'70s, and Parents ambles along to a fusty strain of funk. Most impressive however is that May plays absolutely everything: every wah coaxed from guitar; every synthetic schmack of rhythm; every twang of gangly bass. No Love nor Bainbridge equivalents are to souse his creativity with conflict and there's a liberal approach to everything May does. Thus it's therefore endearingly paradoxical that scintillating opener Rent Money concerns the humdrum consternation of "chasing that rent money for the rest of my life." May apparently inhabits some dreamworld far removed from such monotony – if Do Things is to be believed – and essentially, it's all about escapism anyhow, this music malarkey right?
Jamie Holloway.
