Album reviews: Broads, Forest Swords, Strangers, Clowns and Colin Stetson

In response to a world that appears to be plunging towards darkness, Matthew Barnes (Forest Swords) has delivered 10 songs that aspire to generate a new and restorative light. The Liverpool producer's late-night inner-city dub reveals tiny crystalline sounds, elegantly embroidered throughout his music that elevate his second album above any sense of decay or pessimism. Samples of orchestral strings, piano, brass, vocals and echoed percussion folded among electronic swirls, overrun pulses and synthesiser loops allow for enthralling moments of counterpoint and destabilisation. Barnes knows the sweet spot between intellectual and entertaining and skilfully makes it his home. Even after repeated spins these largely instrumental songs still surprise with their keepsake refrains and diverging progressions. Classical techniques of melodic narrative used alongside contemporary tools of hypnotic rhythm allows Barnes to offer the complexity of double, triple, quadruple fugues in a futuristic setting. While his previous releases have been exceptional works of studio composition, this album feels like something more triumphant – a culmination of ideas and skill into a listening experience that aches and shines.

SEAN RABIN

Strangers

MIRRORLAND

(Sony)

★★★

In the five years since they released their debut album Persona Non Grata, alternative rock outfit Strangers have lost a guitarist, relocated from Melbourne to Sydney and had frontman Ben Britton surmount mental health issues. On their new long player they sound, not surprisingly, like they've been forged by adversity. They have a survivor's dedication and negative emotion to purge: the spite of Hex Mob, where Britton's voice climbs the snarling, concise riff fashioned by Mark Barnes, is typical of their hardened focus. Mirrorland sits in the lineage of progressive Australian hard rock – leaner than Cog, harder than Dead Letter Circus – that works a narrow form to a polished perfection; it's noticeable how the panoramic space the rhythm section engineers on The Wall offers simple but welcome variety. Otherwise it's the fast and the furious, with the title track ushering in drum thunder and overdriven guitar, while Sand hints at a touch of groove in the metallic Muse-work. The autobiographical Fear of Nothing lays out Britton's struggle, although the band's momentum keeps him moving forward even when he wants to dig down.

CRAIG MATHIESON

Broads

VACANCY

(broadsmusic.com)

★★★★

Some vocal harmonies decorate a melody; those of Kelly Day and Jane Hendry deepen it. It's like that lighting effect in film that makes a scene look hyper-real. Melbourne's Day (the main songwriter) and Hendry are the Broads in question, with a guest backing band of electric guitars, bass and drums. Actually the whole effect of their approach is cinematic: the music slow and either stark or sprawling, and the imagery dark, whether in a genuinely noirish way, or with two tongues planted in two cheeks (as with Dear John). If the style is rooted in country, it's not a place of dust, flies, utes and farms, but a deliciously imagined land of losers and set-backs, as though Day and Hendry are singing in the bar at the end of the universe, which happens to be peopled with drinkers in cowboy hats. Usually 10 songs this slow and sparse might start to wear, but Broads, like Josh Haden's Spain, make the format work by intensifying all the elements, so you hang on the words as you might a call from a lover.

JOHN SHAND

Clowns

LUCID AGAIN

(Poison City)

★★★★

Local hardcore ratbags Clowns are the perfect example of what hard work and a handy dose of wit can do if you stick to your guns. Learning their craft by playing anywhere and everywhere, these days it's not uncommon to see Clowns' name on gig posters spread far and wide. They can be playing a small club and supporting a major touring act in the same week; then hit the road the next. On third album Lucid Again there's an extra band member, and tighter production around vocals, plus more jam time. The six-minute title track goes from second to fourth gear in a flash. Like a Knife at a Gunfight has a riff the Hellacopters would love to have come up with themselves, and Destroy the Evidence has a vintage, low-fi garage growl that shows off the benefits of having an extra guitar. Fifteen Minutes of Infamy features a shredding riff with a chorus that has the potential to be a live favourite. Nine-minute closer Not Coping is a punk/hardcore jam few have been game to try. Much like Eddy Current's Rush to Relax, Lucid Again showcases a young band willing to reach out and expand as opposed to relying on the same winning formula.

MATT N. RYAN

Colin Stetson

ALL THIS I DO FOR GLORY

(Kartel Music)

★★★★

On his first solo recording since 2013's To See More Light, Michigan-born Montreal-based saxophonist Colin Stetson again reveals his immense talent for constructing musical worlds using a single instrument. By positioning microphones at not only the bell of his bass saxophone but also along its body and across his voice box he captures the percussive thump of its keys along with his internal singing. Add to this the technique of circular breathing that enables him to blow continuous tones and Stetson is able to build multidimensional compositions that require no loops or overdubs. The punk purity of no added extras befits Stetson's adventurous music. Not only is it physically demanding to perform, but to keep so many intersecting rhythms simultaneously developing demonstrates an extraordinary musical talent. Each Stetson album has it own sound and concept, and these six songs are evidently an ode to early 1990s electronica. The music is intimate, occasionally cold, futuristic and richly ambient. The firmer song structures of previous albums have given way to the cubist jazz of Autechre or Information. But whatever the influence this is a record that sounds like nothing else.

SEAN RABIN