Peer Pressure – SIR-VERE (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

As I have mentioned many times when talking about SIR-VERE and bands like them, not that there are many bands like them, the best music comes from the liminal sonic spaces. And by liminal sonic spaces, I mean those places where genres blur, demarcations are swept away with the ebb and flow of exploration and where the assignment of labels and tags becomes even more irrelevant than usual.

Peer Pressure may run on a skittering, dance floor groove, but it is more than a mere pop or dance tune; if it is, it is one which has been raised way above the heads of its competitors. Although, for this outing at least, things do lean slightly more towards techno and other clubland sounds, the influence of more robust musical forms also echoes out from the heart of the song. It is just such a weight and attitude that made the likes of The Prodigy much more than merely an electronic dance music outfit, and they have always been a good reference point for SIR-VERE.

Here, we have a sound that comes from the more intelligent reaches of trip-hop, the smarter sonic dance realms, never content to achieve their impact via just big beats and sonic sucker punches. Such moves are in there somewhere, the band being masters of the breakdown and the impactful return, the dynamics and the euphoric highs, but the band also make plenty of room for nuance and spaciousness, sonic undercurrent and musical understatement, when required.

Beyond the standard tune, there are two remixes which do take things into more dance fuelled realms, but for me, it is that sonic meeting of worlds that runs through the original track which best exemplifies what it is that SIR-VERE does and does so brilliantly.