Five years on from their first single, Love Ends Disaster!'s debut album is where the first wave of post-punk revivalists should have gone next rather than waves of overwrought overproduction or doing the same thing again to ongoing reductive effect. The previously released tracks retain their knife edge wiry intensity, all Chameleons-meets-Cure staring into the new wave abyss with a wall of melodic noise backing them up, shimmering and jolting where variously required. But that's not all they do, and it's most impressive how whatever turns they temporarily take don't feel like they're executed for the sake of it. There's grandstanding anthemry, electronic and ambient sheens, wild eyed spikiness underlaid and cut up with synthesised pulse, fuzzed out and/or washed out ethereality with pedals and in one case a grandstanding piano ballad. They never hide their knowledge of a good hook as much as they don't overindulge on the oblique, and they're not post-Radiohead (or post-Bloc Party) as such either. That they do so much and try out so wide a palette is never at the detriment of how the album flows or the songwriting as a tight, jumpy band experience either. Running on full with art-rock angularity, questingly experimental passage introductions and knowledge through rapid experience, half a decade on they're still an eclectic, exciting prospect.
[Spotify]
Suzanne (live)
The full list
No comments:
Post a Comment