This is an e.p littered with wonderful post-punk references, younger listeners, the current consumers of new music might not get the resonance of some truly great bands running through this, or may do so via the musical Chinese whispers and passing of batons that keeps music evolving. But to an oldie like me I see the spirit of Ian Curtis, Echo and The Bunnymen and The Cure hanging heavy over proceedings, especially as Demons eases us into the record. And why not, it is how music moves forward and this isn’t a mere plundering, more a reverential tip of the hat to past greats.
And when the band really put their foot on the accelerator they find their own sonic space, City of Culture is a soaring crescendo of Pixie-esque intensity, a musical squall of brooding and aggressive guitars. And so are their parameters are defined, at one extreme evocative, spacious and haunting at the other cacophonous and expansive.
New waves happen all the time but if this is the current sound of a breaking musical wave, a wave which echoes my own past preferences, then I for one am happy to sit in the shallows as this washes over me and wait to be drawn out to sea.
