Back in 1976, if you’d caught David Bowie and Brian Eno on their way into the studio to lay down some more tracks for the former’s Low album, and asked them who was the best band in the world, they would have said Harmonia. As Low is among the most influential albums of all time, it follows that, while comparatively few people have heard Harmonia, an awful lot of us have heard bands that sound a bit like them (whether they realise it or not). Engineers have cut out the middle influence and gone straight back to the source. On the opening track of this, their second album, they sample Watussi, the opening track of Harmonia’s first album, refashioning one of krautrock’s most famous riffs into a slowly evolving but eventually blistering statement of intent — Clean Coloured Wire tells us immediately that there is more to Engineers than the shoegazing tag. Mind you, being labelled as shoegazers isn’t the insult these days that it was when their debut emerged. In the four years since, the band have suffered from “record-company restructuring”, and almost called it a day, only to be summoned back — we are told — by public support (although whether that was a huge web-based movement or a bloke at a bus stop saying “Didn’t you used to be them Engineers?” isn’t made clear in the publicity material). Whatever, the point is that public opinion was right. Engineers transcend shoegazing and approach the heights of Spiritualized at their space-rocking best. We need these guys around. ME

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