This second LP by the South Yorkshire/London six-piece expands their post-punk sound palette with a collection of arresting, thrumming songs, often dark and challenging, with richly exploratory lyrics across dystopian and existential questions, yet despite a climate of difficult, shows how gasping for life’s oxygen is essential. Opener Purity I has a express train-like rhythmic momentum emerging through a shadowy landscape of sounds, shard-like guitars and synths into a thumping bass and heavily damning lyrics of human life such as: “So shun your persecutor child of Earth, be brave / Be rid of all emotion / There’ll be none left, save for/ Feeling the felicity of kingdom come / Gaining without guilt, surrendering the sum / Of the odious overlord that needs us numb / As in self flagellation we continue to play dumb.” To The Brim, seeking truth and meaning, begins with a gentle mix of sax and harp, before a reverberant guitars bring a flavour Echo and the Bunnymen and a sense of nihilistic hunger. Songless Bird has a dark jazz element mixed in with discordant, angular post-punk and addresses a toxic figure: “The hostility that you preserve / Is caged up like a songless bird / And all the names dragged through the dirt / Are yet to peek and re-emerge.” Standout track It Comes Creeping summons a real menace through a haze of twisted saxophone and other sounds before a telling thrumming bassline and fabulously disturbing guitars clatter and shatter, accompany the deep vocals describing the spectre of dread that haunts us as human beings. There’s a huge amount to unpack on this album but the dark side is never far away. Even on the far gentler, sonically toothing, shore-like sounds of What The World Missed, come these lyrics: “All manner of evils, the worst is yet to be / Such a merciless bubble through whose sides / None can see.” A collection of deep, dark, catchy numbers all the way to closer Meanwhile In A Parallel. Overall a listening experience that’s dark, stormy, meaty, complex, densely deep, clever and challenging, but a work that also rewards with a few more listens. Out on So Recordings.
New to comment? It is quick and easy. You just need to login to Disqus once. All is explained in About/FAQs ...
Feel free to recommend more new songs and albums and comment below. You can also use the contact page, or find more on social media: Song Bar X, Song Bar Facebook. Song Bar YouTube, and Song Bar Instagram. Please subscribe, follow and share.
Song Bar is non-profit and is simply about sharing great music. We don’t do clickbait or advertisements. Please make any donation to help keep the Bar running: