Described to me as being Irish but sounding like The Windmill scene, and given my proclivity towards BC,NR and Black Midi (and, to a lesser but still present extent, Squid), that seemed like a good start. It’s not really very Windmill-y - the energy, but the musical depth is somewhat lacking. This isn’t a bad thing, or a complaint. It’s close to maybe Sorry?
It’s also the first new album of 2024 I’ve got on deck, which is fun. I had expected Marika Hackman’s next week to be the first, but why not start when you can.
Shaking Their Hands is the first song that really grabs me, but it’s hard to say whether it’s that it stands out or just comparative to the other songs so far. I begin to think that Shadow Of A Doubt also stands out as a contrast, a quieter song to Shaking Their Hands’ loudness, but this is actually pulling off the trick of the second half shift, going from deathly quiet to a quite impressive kicking into life.
Literary Mind is the perfect upbeat, dare I say happy, mid-to-two-thirds-in track, a little bit All My Friends in chord progression. It works really nicely, I can see it slotting into playlists of mine easily. It’ll stick in my head. At least, I hope it will.
This mood actually sustains throughout the remainder of the album, for the most part. You might argue the exact nature of the up-or-down-beated-ness (that’s got to be a hyphen record for me) of the titular closer, where we’re almost getting into Joy Formidable territory before entering a charming closing 30 seconds that, whilst not quite up-ending the song, feels like both finale and coda at once. It’s not quite, then, an album of two halves, but that’s a wonderful little run towards the end there.