been sitting on this for a while now, unsure of what to make of it. on first listen it smacked a bit of no-mans-land treading water stuck between stations bet hedging, dubious of either crossroads path, whether to continue with the distorto-hiss of yore(which they do) or clean it up a bit and have more high-vis tunesmitherry (which they do also).
but it’s grown on me like mould. it’s less amphetameanied, less immediate, less bullying than previous but they still sound like the willful contrarians that rejuved siltbreeze, made guided by voices old shit tunes reasonably hipsterish again and burst my bloody eardrums in the captains rest last year.
what i dig about them is that slightly raised middle finger to the listening public. the one that says this sounds broken, and fuck you-hoo. the one that says, the melodies? we bury them on record under tascam discordia and live we swamp this soup with blustering volume. the one that says sloppy and half-arsed with an insouciant nonchalance. the one that says we heart noise with an uncapitalised n. the one that says we heart pop with a big fucking O. and when they combine the two like on no time, no hope it’s a regular fucking delight. the giddy glee of destroying something simple and pretty like a plain old melody with a giant rubber mallet of hideous fuzz. of finding the beauty in ugly.
that said…
the numbing wash of overdriven strings and keys has been tempered. still sounds k-record primitive and flying nun (bargain)basement. still sounds in it’s own odd way like every other times new viking record. (i’m not one for demanding unecessary constant exploration and innovation). it’s still immediate: a fistful of chords some boy girl call response vox (now with semi-audible lyrics) and hazy organ. it’s all there. but more so. or less so. i’m confuddled by this still.
where they go from here (if this is some kind of jiggering transition album) i dunno? backwards to rice crispy fidelity? forwards to shiny pop sheen? askewedwards to pollard-esque prog?
it ends in a thirty minute rush with thirty odd seconds of slop called take the piss. made me laugh.
