Could it be so...?
We talked about it last year, and now we are worried. When the chasm between the mainstream and the underground first opened up around 1980, it took ten years before shoegaze bands rose to prominence. Exactly ten years on from the alternative revival in 2013, they reappeared and came to dominate the scene, the giants of the past having even greater success than they did the first time around. Unfortunately, a couple of years after shoegaze came Britpop. Could it be possible that we are about to face the same hell again? The thought is terrifying and midway through the year the threat looked as though it might be becoming real. Oasis are reuniting and playing gigs to anybody who can afford a second mortgage. Britpop destroyed the underground the first time around by dragging it back into the mainstream. Surely it can't happen again?
Already things are not looking rosy in the garden. Last year the Music Venue Trust reported that the country had lost some 15.7% of small venues in 2023, representing 4,000 jobs, 14,250 events, £9 million of income for musicians and £59 million in direct economic activity. Things only got worse last year when the government showed they had heeded none of the Trust's concerns. Despite extensive briefing to HM Treasury, the Department of Culture, Media & Sport and the Department for Business & Trade about the negative economic, social and cultural impacts of the removal of the 75% business rate relief for grassroots music venues, the government announced on 30th October that business rate relief will reduce to 40% from 1st April 2025. The immediate impact of this will be to create a demand for £7 million in additional premises taxes from a sector that, in 2023, returned an entire gross profit across all 830 such venues of just £2.9 million. 43% of such small venues in the UK made a loss in 2023.
This move has put over 350 venues at immediate risk of closure, representing the potential loss of more than 12,000 jobs, over £250 million in economic activity and the loss of over 75,000 live music events. The Trust announced three possible solutions:
- The Government could think again and act upon the extensive data it has received about the impact of unfair and unreasonable premises tax demands and restore the 75% rate relief.
- The Government could create an emergency fund of a maximum of £7 million and allow venues facing the imminent threat of closure to draw down from this fund to meet the new tax demand.
- Every grassroots music venue in the country could install a temporary business rate levy of 50p applied to every ticket sold and used directly to meet the £7 million demand. This levy would need to be applied until the new business rate system is installed, predicted by the government to be on 1st April 2026.
The MVT stressed that it believes ticket prices should be kept accessible and is reluctant to encourage venues to adopt option 3, but unless the government is willing to think again, it unfortunately may be the only possible option to stop a complete collapse of live music in our communities. (www.musicvenuetrust.com)
With the alternative scene coming under such relentless attack, it is amazing that 2024 was yet another positive year for releases. It has been a great year for jangle pop which appears to be challenging shoegaze as the most popular genre, whilst in the psych field record labels across the globe continue to work together to keep their bands and labels afloat. In that field, the Fuzz Club label appears to be growing inexorably in importance and reputation and they are now releasing records from a number of big names as well as from more obscure psych acts. Like many smaller labels they are using subscription services to help sustain them. In this way, a small number of subscribers can make a huge difference.
Everybody has been waiting for the vinyl bubble to burst and djmag.com reported on Discogs' actions in stepping in to squash widely reported rumours that vinyl sales in the US in 2024 were down 33%. A report from Billboard had erroneously claimed that sales were down from 34.9 million units in 2023 to just 23.3 million in 2024 but the vinyl marketplace debunked this by confirming that record sales in the US were actually up 6.2%. The reason for the error was down to a change in the way Luminate collates its data. This company has for many years supplied Billboard with its consumption information and acknowledged that the changes had caused the mistake.
In the UK, music sales hit a 20-year high in 2024. Vinyl was again on the up, seeing almost £200m spent on albums, an increase of more than 10%. CD sales generated £126.2m, just over a half, though they are a cheaper product to manufacture and still sell more units than vinyl, with 10.5 million CD albums bought, compared to 6.7m vinyl records. Those who remember how much CDs cost when they first appeared in the UK can probably appreciate the irony. Takings from streaming services (including Spotify, YouTube Music, and Amazon) rose by 7.8% to a little over £2bn. Figures from the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA), said subscriptions to services like Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music accounted for almost 85% of the total money spent on music last year.
Unsurprisingly, Taylor Swift took the top spot for the UK’s best-selling vinyl album of 2024. The Tortured Poets Department sold 112,000 units last year, making it her third consecutive year at the top. The album debuted at number one on the charts with 66,000 vinyl sales which made it the fastest-selling vinyl album of the millennium. Oasis’ Definitely Maybe came in second with 50,500 vinyl sales, boosted by its 30th anniversary reissue and their 2025 comeback. American singer Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess ranked third with 43,600 units sold.
On to our albums of the year. Again, it was easy to fill a top fifty, and we could probably have done a hundred. We had a few fights, but we think our list is a fairly good snapshot of how our listening fell. Again, we demoted some albums which possiby should have made it in, giving the nod to a few more obscure contenders whose work may have been in danger of being overlooked. Please give any albums you have not heard a listen.
In the Psych field we have been a bit more balanced this year between the dark and the light, with Tess Parks on one side and Psychic Lemon on the other. Albums by Melts, Goat, Black Doldrums and The Gluts fall in between, while Stephen Lawrie and his Telescopes seem to defy all catagorisation and again have two albums in the top twenty. The quality of this man's work over so many years is both outstanding and ridiculousy overlooked. There are plenty of jangly pop albums, including stunners from The Shop Window and Chime School, and some new shoegaze material from Air Formation and Whitelands it would be impossible to ignore. There is goth and anti-goth, strophe and antistrophe ... well, you get the picture.
If you want more information about these records we would usually urge you to check out our reviews pages where most are discussed in more detail. This year we may have a few missing. Apologies for this. I have been battling a life-threatning illness this year and not only has that taken a toll physically, it has been difficult to keep focussed on listening and writing. I appear to be well now and hope to catch up on things. This also explains why this summary is a bit shorter than usual. If you sent us music to review and we haven't done that, or sent us messages to which we haven't responded, our apologies. Normal service will be resumed ... unless Britpop shows up again.
We admire all alternative artists for managing to express themselves so cogently and inventively yet again against all the odds. And for interacting with their supporters in the friendly way so many of them do. Many thanks to Jason who must have spent a billion pounds on records this year, to Gary for his regular contribution and to Jackie just for being there. Special thanks to Andy Keating of Ist Ist for always finding the time to chat with us. If you haven't heard Light A Bigger Fire then please give it a listen. It's a stunning thing.
Have a great year, see as many bands as you can, buy merch, use Bandcamp and piss on Spotify...
Albums of the Year
Louder Than War
20. John Cale - Poptical Illusion
19. Richard Hawley - In This City They Call ...
18. Erotic Secrets Of Pompeii - Mondo Maleficum
17. House Of All - Continuum
16. James - Yummy
15. Nia Archives - Silence Is Loud
14. Dead Pioneers - Dead Pioneers
13. The Lovely Eggs - Eggsistentialism
12. Deadletter - Hysterical Strength
11. Pizzatramp - The Last Supper
10. The Smile - Wall Of Eyes
9. Meryl Streek: Songs For The Deceased
8. Ultimate Thunder - Spider Eat Your Flesh
7. English Teacher - This Could Be Texas
6. Fontaines DC - Romance
5. Idles - Tangk
4. Peter Perrett - The Cleansing
3. Nick Cave & The Bad Seed - Wild God
2. The Cure - Songs Of A Lost World
1. Amyl & The Sniffers - Cartoon Darkness
www.louderthanwar.com
New Musical Express
20. Confidence Man - 3AM (La La La)
19. Tyla - Tyla
18. Nemahsis - Verbathim
17. Clairo - Charm
16. RM - Right Place, Wrong Person
15. Mk.gee - Two Star & The Dream Police
14. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks
13. Kneecap - Fine Art
12. Kendrick Lamar - GNX
11. Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee
10. Rachel Chinouriri - Devastating Turn ...
9. Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard and Soft
8. Mustafa - Dunya
7. Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter
6. The Cure - Songs Of A Lost World
5. Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk
4. Nia Archives - Silence Is Loud
3. English Teacher - This Could Be Texas
2. Fontaines DC - Romance
1. Charli XCX - Brat
www.nme.com
Resident - Brighton Record Shop
20. Adrianne Lenker - Bright Future
19. Ducks Ltd - Harm's Way
18. Shellac - To All Trains
17. The Smile - Wall Of Eyes
16. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks
15. Kim Gordon - The Collective
14. The Cure - Songs of a Lost World
13. Nadine Shah - Filthy Underneath
12. Mermaid Chunky - Slif Slaf Slof
11. Nilufer Yanya - My Method Actor
10. Tapir - The Pilgrim
9. Mount Kimble - The Sunset Violent
8. Beak - >>>>
7. Kneecap - Fine Art
6. Fontaines DC - Romance
5. English Teacher - This Could Be Texas
4. Wunderhorse - Midas
3. Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood
2. Charli XCX - Brat
1. Lime Garden - One More Thing
www.resident-music.com
BBC 6 Music
Unranked
Hamish Hawk - A Firmer Hand
Jessica Pratt - Here in the Pitch
Thee Marloes - Perak
Ezra Feinberg - Soft Power
Naima Bock - Below a Massive Dark Land
AG Cook - Britpop
Bob Vylan - Humble as the Sun
Mount Kimbie - The Sunset Violent
Amyl and the Sniffers - Cartoon Darkness
English Teacher - This Could Be Texas
Warmduscher - Too Cold To Hold
Charli xcx - Brat
Tess Parks - Pomegranate
Nadine Shah - Filthy Underneath
Fontaines DC - Romance
Kim Gordon - The Collective
Nala Sinephro - Endlessness
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
I like it when people say we’re a great new young band. We’re not that. We’ve been going nearly ten years and one of us is nearly forty...
Continued here...
Andy Keating, Ist Ist
Album of the Year Interview
The Black Watch have been hovering around the indie scene since their formation in Santa Barbara in 1987 and have remained both prolific and largely overlooked. Releasing their debut album St. Valentine in 1988, we count this new release as album number twenty-four. Such profligacy should have seen this record titled The Black Watch Sell Out which would be very appropriate as it finds no little inspiration from The Who's similarly-named 1967 masterpiece, filled as it is with rattling doors, radio announcements, jingles and random chattering. There aren't many bands whose twenty-fourth album sounds like it could be their best, but The Black Watch are not your normal band. There could well be another thirty albums out before main man, John Andrew Fredrick, calls it a day, but we would bet that not many of them will surpass Weird Rooms which is both attractive and affecting, while remaining light-hearted and appealing. This collection tips a hat to so much that has gone before, but does so respectfully and cleverly.
Bang! is the fifth album from the Milan-based psych powerhouses and their first for approaching three years. We fell for The Gluts when we listened to their 2017 Fuzz Club debut, Estasi, which explored a dangerous psych underworld, full of raging cataracts of sound. The band showed they could infuse monochrome post-punk accents with explosive psych tones and the result was something rather special. After two rather disappointing misfires, Bang!, described by the band as "the sound of a single gunshot, straight to the heart”, finally sees them achieving what we always knew they could as it is a punishing record, crowded with fast-paced, noisy anthems that border on punk, yet is shot through with thoughtful psych experimentalism, and some simply terrifying guitars. It is not all bluster as much consideration has gone into these songs and though Bang! hits hard, at times it reveals a slightly softer underbelly which shows that tough and vulnerable can be a winning combination.
The second album from Bedfordshire-based melodic indie-poppers Silver Biplanes arrived sixteen months after their excellent debut A Moment in the Sun, and it is pretty much more of the same, a blend of nicely worked alternative guitar tunes drawing in influences from across the board whilst never forgetting their jangle pop roots. There are eight tracks from songwriter Tim Vass, formerly of the mighty Razorcuts, and four cover versions of "Silver" songs recorded in late 2022, which were originally intended to appear on an EP of cover versions but were eventually held back for this album. These present an intriguing mixture, including a nicely spaced-out version of Hawkwind's 'Silver Machine' which is really rather terrific. This is another fascinating and textured collection of songs you would do well not to overlook. Alternative pop music at its best: touching, crafted, intelligent and understanding the things that are important.
When Ian Hunter was forced to abandon his live work due to debilitating tinnitus you may have been forgiven for thinking that the veteran rocker would finally call it a day. Far from it. Last year's Defiance Part 1 album was little short of a triumph with many of the great and the good from the rock scene eager to work with the UK's number one lyrical genius. So much recording was done that Defiance Part 2 was released this year and is pretty much more of the same. Again, sadly, the record features some of the final recordings from the late Jeff Beck and Taylor Hawkins, whilst other guests include Brian May, Joe Elliott and Phil Collen (Def Leppard), Robin Zander, Rick Neilsen and Tom Petersson (Cheap Trick), Chris Robinson and Rich Robinson (The Black Crowes), Mike McCready and Matt Camerson (Pearl Jam), Stone Temple Pilots, Johnny Depp and Lucinda Williams. Hunter's strength is that he has always regarded fame as a fraud and so portrays his humanity without ego, meaning his songs rarely fail to strike a chord with the listener.
Last year's guest columnist, Nathaniel Cramp, continues to uncover bright new talent for his Sonic Cathedral label, with London four-piece Whitelands the latest to emerge with their sparkling debut album, Night-Bound Eyes Are Blind To The Day. Musically, this is at the lighter end of the shoegaze spectrum with dancing melodies and chiming guitars tumbling in to each other. Apparently, the group's sound was inspired by Slowdive, and it is not difficult to work out which bands Whitelands have studied and loved; at times there are definite hints of Cocteau Twins and at others nods to AR Kane. Night-Bound Eyes is an easy listen; you can let the eight songs wash over you like a reverb shower and be lost in the prettiness of it all, but if you search deeper and listen more intently you will discover that these are some pretty serious songs touching on racism, imperialism and hate. The whole album is indeed an assured condemnation of the lame assertion that black acts must be angry and are incapable of sensitivty. In the shoegaze world that sort of bollocks was laid to rest the moment Rudy Tambala picked up a guitar nearly forty years ago; it's almost unbelievable that Whitelands have the need to disprove it all over again. This is a sensitive and beautiful record.
It's not just shoegaze that has emerged as a renewed force in recent years, the current upsurge in jangle pop has reached almost pandemic proportions with solid albums emerging from every corner of the globe. Whether the pioneers of the jangle ever expected their endeavours to serve as the foundations for future world domination we sincerely doubt, but it appears it is time once again to focus on our internal fears as the world tumbles into turmoil. The Shop Window have been one of the leading lights in the jangle revival for five years and their third album is undoubtedly their finest. Not just an album, Daysdream has been released as a double, which intrinsically serves as two mini albums, one encompassing "Days" and the other "Dream". The former is filled with familiar indie guitar pop, whilst the latter adopts a more melancholic mood. The band's music is far removed from the shambolic punk rushes of some of the original jangle bands; it is highly refined guitar music that is well thought out and structured and simply sings. Soundwise we sway from the chiming Byrdsian to Razorcuts-inspired numbers which fantastically adopt that band's vague air of disappointment. Chuck in a sprinkling of Beach Boys, some horns and exposed emotional fragility and it's pretty much the perfect package.
It's been a long time coming but Kim Deal's debut solo album has finally emerged some thirty-seven years after she first came to our attention as part of the original and best Pixies' line-up. As you might expect from such an exuberant character, this record is overflowing with ideas and life, and succeeds in being both headscratching and bloody marvellous. Be assured this is not a Breeders' album; there doesn't appear to be a unifying theme and the songs are eclectic, some filled with sunny Caribbean horns and others grinding though the dirty depths of post-punk shadow. So wide is its scope, it is not really a surprise that the album was released on Sparkle Universe coloured vinyl. Largely played by Kim, and produced by her, there is the odd guest appearance that gives the record an extra shine. Ayse Hassan and Fay Milton of Savages feature on the grinding 'Big Ben Beat', while fellow Breeders Jim Macpherson and Kelley Deal add to 'A Good Time Pushed' alongside Teenage Fanclub's Raymond McGinley. A really interesting collection of songs here with so much to love.
When The Fauns released their second album, Lights, in 2013 it seemed that they had the world at their feet. It was a magnificent record: delicate, beautiful and irresistible. The last thing we expected was that it would take the band over ten years to release a follow-up. How lost? Well, pretty much totally. Having lost their two guitarists over the last decade, The Fauns added soundtrack composer Will Slater to the band and it is his keyboards that dominate these recordings, the nine songs dancing along to pulsating electronica. Such a move would generally be our worst nightmare, but for The Fauns, it really seems to work. Though the music bubbles and pops and the lyrics appear less introverted than previously, every song sounds just like The Fauns. And The Fauns always sound lush and beguiling. In part this is due to Alison Garner's fabulous vocals. She has a voice that enthrals and delights, sensual half-whispers that are quite unmistakeable. Insubstantial as they may appear they root these songs into the dream reality in which The Fauns have always dwelt. Add the unerring talent of songwriter Michael Savage to capture a melody and make it sound like the finest thing on earth, then you can't really go wrong.
Despite Slowdive becoming the rulers of the world in recent times, their drummer Simon Scott still found the time to record an album under the Three Quarter Skies banner, and a bloody good one it is too. Though this is obviously going to be tagged with the shoegaze label, it stretches its reach way past any categorisation, creating huge slabs of sound that shudder with power and emotion. Despite its weight, these tunes float rather than smother, the vocals feeling like they have been there since the dawn of time, speaking universal truths. Guitars shimmer over unemotional drones, the drums rattle and calmness descends. This is not music to sink you into your dreams, it is far too powerful. It is music that talks to your brain and places it on the path to certainty and reason. There are no doubts here.
Stephen Lawrie has become extremely productive over the past few years and has produced a number of albums that feature among his very best. There have been two a year for the past couple of years and Halo Moon is the second of 2024, following hard on the heels of Growing Eyes Becoming String. That album was begun a decade previously and put on hold when a computer crashed, losing the album files. When a copy was discovered recently Lawrie was quick to finish the album, which was released in February. While that had a foot in two eras, then, Halo Moon is very much a signal of where The Telescopes are today, recorded with the fine new band that Lawrie hopes he will be able to keep together for some time. Like every Telescopes album, Halo Moon offers something different. This record has a distinct American feel to it; there are country elements, including a harmonica, and there is gospel and rock 'n' roll. Of course this sounds distinctly different Telescopes-style, like the bones of the genres are being exhumed and pieced together in new ways. Lawrie is such a fascinating artist, his work never fails to thrill.
The March Violets never managed to record an album in their pomp
and this is their first effort at doing so since vocalist Si Denbigh suffered a stroke in 2016 and the band continued as a three-piece with founder members Rosie Garland and Tom Ashton joined by bassist William Faith. Crocodile Promises very much captures the essence of the Violets, though it lacks the male-female vocals that were a big part of their make-up. It means there is less tension in the songs, though they retain a sharp edge with Garland's theatrical vocals draped over Ashton's guitars. Ashton was always the most impressive of the goth guitarists; he has an uncanny knack of playing a riff that will cut you in half and sweep away the pieces and the more he contributes here the better the album becomes. New man Mat Thorpe feeds the drum machine with fat, rolling basslines adding weight to the whole and it doesn't take many plays before the listener becomes hopelessly addicted. It is so good to have them back and active.
The Libertines have been back for some time now and we were wondering if we would ever see their fourth album, but they finally delivered with their first outing in nine years. The immediate impression is one of cohesion; though obviously having their difficult moments over the years, on the whole this band has shared a camaraderie like The Small Faces and they often take a similar approach to their music where extraneous tomfoolery can spill over onto the record, underlining how much the band are enjoying putting these songs together. Yet when their focus is sharpened, they can still create music of outstanding warmth and quality. There are traits that could only belong to The Libertines; Pete Doherty's vocal approach is unique, his poetry spilling out more words per song than most bands would think possible. And then there is The Libertines' distinct guitar sound that thrills as well as assures. All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade is everything The Libertines embody and, despite the band having dispersed to various corners of Europe, is so essentially English it could have been scraped from the gutters in your street.
Marking their 40th annniversary, we never expected the Mary Chain would produce a record this significant and this courageous, ticking boxes in places there never were boxes before. The first point to celebrate is that Glasgow Eyes is a post-CD album. Having run Munki up to an hour and a half and Damage and Joy to 65 minutes, we are presented here with 49 minutes of music; a proper album made to fit on to two sides of vinyl with strict quality controls in place. The next plus is that the duo seem comfortable with each other again. That Glasgow Eyes is self-produced is a sure sign that Jim and William are back in harmony and when the brothers click there is usually magic happening. This is everything you would expect from the Mary Chain – self-referential, dripping with expletives and immersed in rock and roll folkore – yet it is also nothing you would expect from the band. The Reids tread paths they have never even hinted at in the past; every song comes from a different angle and every one has you raising your eyebrows in surprise. They don't only have a finger in every conceivable pie, but they do it with overbrimming confidence.
Despite it being forty years since the Inca Babies smashed the doors down with their debut album Rumble, their new offering shows that they have lost very little of the fire and obsession that has marked their long career. Every Inca's song emerges from the grubbiness of the gutters, yet Ghost Mechanic Nine is the most brutal collection of songs they have sellotaped together since their early days. They feature the disjointed and broken constructions of old alongside the bleak swamp rock of later years. Basses roll, drums thump and guitars stab with Harry Stafford overlaying everything with his customary torrent of words, the man remaining one of the best lyricists of the age. He also plays keyboards which roll along like funfair music from Scooby Doo. And nothing could be finer than that. At its best this is savage, and it is pretty much always at its best. And it's a proper album with nine songs running in at under forty minutes; hopefully we have said goodbye to the CD-length album with its general failure of quality control.
Growing Eyes Becoming String is an oddity in The Telescopes' catalogue as it fits snugly into two eras. The record was begun at Christmas 2013, but was lost for a decade when a hard drive crashed. Though Stephen Lawrie was thinking of heading back towards more traditional song structures at that time, he decided on improvisation for this project. Two recording sessions took place, both with London's One Unique Signal, the first in the Brian Jonestown Massacre studio in Berlin and the second in Leeds with long time associate Richard Formby. With the project being resurrected when back-up recordings were recently discovered, it is a surprise to hear that many of the songs echo the band's current sound, though Lawrie explains he had finalised the lyrics and wrote the lead guitar parts in lockdown, so maybe this was inevitable. It shows that with Lawrie nothing changes, yet everything changes. There is no standing still yet he is ever battling with eternal constants. New paths may lead to new perspectives yet problems seen through different eyes remain problems. If you could think your way through the trials of life no artist would have achieved that more comprehensively, but nobody has worked out a way to do that. It's why philosophers go mad. But when Lawrie tries, at least he leaves his workings out. And inevitably they sound fantastic.
The return of the legendary Wolfgang Press was just about the best news of 2024, even more so as the trio released an album more reminscent of their early post-punk work than their later funkier dance tunes. There is no place for original keyboardist Mark Cox in the line-up here with bassist/vocalist Michael Allen and guitarist Andrew Gray joined by the latter's brother Stephen Gray whose chilling keys play a prominent part in proceedings. As always there is a sparsity to their sound as The Wolfgang Press have never found the need to dot every i and cross every t. What is left out only serves to emphasise the importance of what remains and that is stark and at times even menacing. Allen's traditional dubbed basslines occasionally come to the fore while Andrew Gray's guitars are too sparsely used but when they are, they tear the world into a shredded mess. The calmness of the voice and solidity of the bass and beat are perfect frames for feedbacking chaos, as any fule kno. This is all great, but on occasions when the guitars rattle and the bass thumps it is pretty much as close to heaven as you can get. Hopefully there will more soon.
It is rumoured that Am Dram is going to be Spectres' last album, but we certainly hope this is not the case. The band have been trailblazers in a shrinking field of true post-punk experimentalists, producing music that is as broken as it is forceful, and as uncompromising as it comes. Recorded in 2022 when all members of the band were in the same country, which is a rarity these days, Am Dram brings Joe Hatt's vocals to the front while the music crashes all around. It's less visceral than most of Spectres' previous work, but guitars are bent and sound twisted to create intriguing waves of noise that are quite glorious. Like their fellow Bristolians, The Pop Group, Spectres continue to show us what music can be like, what it should be like. Boundaries are literally meaningless and there are no rules. Hidden in here are songs that could be by the Velvet Underground, but they are dressed in tougher clothes and are looking for a fight. A world without Spectres would be a very dull place indeed.
Porridge Radio albums pretty much consist of Dana Margolin hanging her soul out to dry. As on the brilliant Waterslide, Diving Board ... the eleven songs here are intensely personal outpourings of doubt and paranoia that reveal a person not at ease with their place in the world and uncertain of just about everything. "I don't know anybody else, don't want to know anybody else," Dana declares on the opening track and it lays the foundations for the record; somebody intensely private telling the world everything her heart reveals. Just being in this band is a dichotomy, but that's how everything appears. The songs are full of repetitions which serve to emphasise how nothing is solved; no arguments are ever won, no questions lead to answers. Musically, the songs follow the lyrics, all of which contain the word "I", usually in huge multiples. It is always the "I" that is the focus and the problem. It is not to be denied. The music treads carefully when the mood is calm; it explodes when the "I" gets fired up. The drumming is terrifc throughout, despite the music being very much in second place to the voice and emotion. It serves as a mirror rather than a pathfinder because there is no other way to go.
Tunnel vision in sound.
Has there been a better album released than Songs of a Lost World this year? Probably not. Has there been a more important one? We think so. The Cure drop marks for this being their first album in 18 years for which there is really no excuse. We often wonder what makes musicians lose
their drive over the years when once they were so brilliant and prolific. Is it money, fame or comfy sofas? But it seems to come to them all, even though it is clear from listening to Bowie or The Stones (etc etc) that the discipline of recording an album a year always leads to better work. With The Cure you would struggle to blame it on headspace. Robert Smith has been living in an existential crisis since he was a teenager, just now he is looking at fading away and dying rather than the terror of being shovelled into a straightjacket of conformity. That said, this is a beautiful thing. It is orchestrated and subtle and layered and telling, all daubed from a palette of beautiful greys. It has everything that makes a Cure album great: poetry, savage and lovely guitars and thoughtful vocals. It has the calmness of a gentle ocean swell, with twice the depth. Underneath, the currents pull in every direction, each one offering different sights and sensations, though never escape. It's bloody lovely.
With their fourth album, Ist Ist have hinted at greatness for the very first time. Their first three albums were of high quality but their inexorable progression seems to have gained in momentum over the past couple of years. Their growth has been far from linear. Their first album was released on the cusp of the lockdown and the second recorded in the middle of it. It led to the band finding new ways to write songs and test new paths and ideas. When it came to album three all doors were open to them, but happily they re-found their original course and set the wheels rolling once more down the monochrome post-punk route they had first mapped. But they had learned lessons and everything has come together here in a momentous whole. These are songs that you cannot pick apart as they are so complete in themselves; everything is unified and balanced and if one part was taken out, all else would fall down. At first listen you think it's commmercial, but hold these songs up to the ones they play on the radio and you will find they are not commercial at all. They are just more acccessible because they are better in every way: recording, playing, arrangement, production and understanding. We make no predictions with this band because they defy all expectation. But if they continue on this trajectory then nothing is going to stop them.
