What’s that? I believe that’s the sound of some Fast Years [Twitter/Facebook] news. Oh, and a new song for free download. That’s a win, right? If you haven’t got your carefree summery pop fix yet today, you can sort that out with plenty of listens to this. Yes, plenty of listens, as one will just not do. Let Me Try is the first song to be unveiled from the Brooklynites’ forthcoming EP, Women, which makes a splash over here on June 25th. I’m not sure if that timing could actually be any more perfect, as the song itself is absolutely perfect for that time of year. Did you know summer began yesterday? Me neither; I got rained on a lot. Hopefully it’ll properly be in full swing by the time the EP arrives. A breezy, upbeat tale of love and desire, it wouldn’t be too wide of the mark to compare this to early The Drums material. It’s a good reference point to have, as this song is quite different to what we’ve already heard from them. Here’s hoping there’s more where this came from. There’s a variety of reasons I can’t wait for June, and Women is one of them.
Normally, saying that an album is never able to fully settle into itself would be a criticism, but in the case of Fog Electric, this is a compliment. It doesn’t settle because its creators never really allow it to, creating a set of songs in which each component is refreshingly different to the ones it’s surrounded by. I must say that KScope Records have a lot going for them right now. Two weeks ago they released one of my favourite albums of the year in Anathema’s Weather Systems, and they’ve quickly followed it with this: an ambitious, sprawling and powerful album from Scotland’s North Atlantic Oscillation [Facebook/Soundcloud].
The Edinburgh trio, multi-instrumentalists all, describe themselves as ‘electronic rock’, and while there are plenty of electronics present over the course of this album’s 47 minutes, they’re selling themselves short. As evinced by the opening tracks, Soft Coda and Chirality, the new material has much more of a progressive rock feel to it than they are perhaps willing to let on: shifting song structures, a ton of different ideas and changing time signatures make those songs hard to pin down, at times appearing hyper-melodic before taking detours down the ‘contemplative soundscape’ route.
Described as ‘an album about doubt, loss [and] searching for meaning in a post-religious world’, Fog Electric may have had its origins in unpleasant themes, but this sense of resignation is offset by beautiful melodies and a sense of effortless grace that is most audible in the 11-minute stretch that encompasses Empire Waste and Savage With Barometer. The former is probably the most disjointed offering on the album, but its separate pieces come together to produce something extraordinarily refreshing. The latter, meanwhile, is the most direct song that the record has to offer, mixing post-rock with psychedelia and adding in a dash of shoegaze here and there. The dreamy atmosphere and gradual build over five minutes is augmented wonderfully by Sam Healy’s impressive vocals.
Coming out the other side of the palette-cleansing Interval - the album’s a lot to take in at times, so the appearance of something gentler is perfectly timed – Fog Electric moves into its final stretch with another pair of epics: Expert With Altimeter experiments with varying dynamics, its first part disarmingly quiet and giving no indication of the eruption of sound that will come midway through. The album highlight arrives next, topping out at six minutes and being the best thing to happen for the use of woodwind instruments in rock music since These New Puritans’s Hidden. The Receiver makes use of some dazzling harmonies as well, and does a fantastic job of summing up everything that the album is about. I almost neglected to mention how good the climax is – there’s so much going on in it that I’m not surprised about that.
This is an album that is forward-thinking rather than straightforward, and it is all the better for it; one of the most ambitious albums of the year, flirting with many different genres and ideas yet refusing to settle, in a manner that screams ‘diversity!’, instead of highlighting a scatter-shot approach to music making; an album made by musicians in who delight in creativity. The album was flagged by its two most misleading songs – don’t you just love surprises?
The bullshit about guitar music being dead is getting pretty tiring. While it may have ceased to be a mainstream concern (and no wonder; I look back on the days of so-called ‘landfill indie’ and tremble fitfully), it is still very much alive. In fact, it is in rude health. One just needs to know where to look for it. This is all a very roundabout way of saying that The Big Sleep’s [Twitter/Facebook] new album is excellent. It would seem that the band themselves are a touch too modest for their own good, however: the album has ‘experiments’ in the title, and even though there are songs called #1 and Ace to kick off the album, the former finds Danny Barria downplaying the band’s strengths over a pounding bass drum and a single guitar chord: ‘We tried to work it out… We tried and we failed’. Immediately after that line, the song roars into life with the entry of drums and soaring riffs, transforming the song into one of the hardest-hitting album openers of the year so far.
Don’t let the New York three-piece tell you otherwise: they definitely know what they’re doing. Ace makes great use of contrasting dynamics, with a restrained verse and sultry vocals from Sonya Balchandani contrasted with a full-power chorus. They know their way around some great hooks, as well; on an album full of immediate songs, perhaps the one which has the most effect is Valentine. Opening with thudding drums and jittery synth-bass, the song builds into an electro-pop delight, Barria’s powerful baritone contrasting wonderfully with Balchandani’s ethereal vocal delivery before things one again move up a gear for the chorus. In case you haven’t noticed yet, the trio know exactly when to deliver the goods.
Just when it seems like Balchandani could use a little more time in the spotlight, she gets a song all to herself, and Ghosts in Bodies is made all the better for it. A slow-bulding song such as that seems to suit her style perfectly, and then when things get loud around two-and-a-half minutes in, her crooning adds yet another layer to the mix, floating over crashing drums and crunching guitars for a while before everything fades away and the song draws to a feedback-drenched close. At this point, respite seems welcome, and the dreamy Wood on the Water does the job very well indeed.
There are times during Nature Experiments that the band sound slightly reminiscent of Blood Red Shoes; Ladders sounds like it could slot in on In Time to Voices without the listener so much as batting an eyelid; Balchandani sounds more than a little like Laura-Mary Carter at times, but this is no bad thing. For the most part, The Big Sleep are well able to form their own identity and wrong-foot expectations: Four Wishes starts off with a Bloc Party-esque riff, before settling into mid-tempo territory and making use of a juggernaut-like riff every now and then, piling on blasts of heavy rock when it is least expected.
The closer 1001, meanwhile, is built around a swelling organ part, augmented only by bass and a tremulous guitar part. Balchandani’s vocals are once again pitch-perfect as she brings the album to a close in impressive fashion. Far from the haphazard nature of its title, The Big Sleep’s third album is never anything less than completely focused.
Valentine
Nature Experiments is released on Frenchkiss Records next week.
