Following 2023’s No Fixed Point In Space, Jack Cooper and his Cambridge-based lo-fi indie-folk band return with another insightful, poetic album, here with glimmers of gentle, offbeat hope as well as melancholy, exploring themes of collectivism, our relationship with the natural world and the weight of consciousness - but with greater directness and purpose. Opener Pharoah has a Can-like, krautrock gentle momentum, and is a song about disparity between the men we're conditioned to respect and follow, while there are other people who inspire us to think differently. Stylistically the steady drum beat is joined by a new additional dual guitar sound of interweaving riffs with new guitarist Tara Cunningham. The slow walking pace, gorgeously simple Zoology is a poetic hymn to life on Earth unburdened by human consciousness. The seven-minute Source captures an ecological slow-motion disaster (“Silent towns afloat on storms / With the colours slowly draining / Drifting waves of smoke and flame/ Disappearing in the rain. Alpenglow meanwhile is a crisply vivid song that encapsulates the beauty of its name with evolving images and patterns of change (“Aerosol drifting, reflecting the sun as they rise / Witches paint colourful patterns in tears / Cobweb of rainbow expanding from minutes to years / Cortisol drifts to the cause of it all / Mist starts to think about rising, it does and it lets itself fall … Finally, everything starting to fall / Into a pattern that infinite factors break out in fear …”). As with the other other tracks, all with a single-word title, such as Jetty, Takeover and the closer Totality (“Spinning out, we're spinning out / Colouring, we're colouring / Hoping for totality”) there’s a weighted neatness to this release, slowly spinning like the remorseless revolution of our planet, plodding on with purpose and self-contained, simple, reflective perfection. One to gently take your time over, and let it all sink in. Out on Bella Union.
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: