A fractured and shimmering post 4AD landscape of swirling ambitious pop grandeur: vivid, vital and voluptuously noisy. There’s more than a dash of Ian McCulloch about frontman Lewis and his archly articulated turn of phrase by turns conjures Morrissey, Ted Hughes and surprisingly, Schopenhauer’s notion of the sublime.
It bursts open like a My Bloody Valentine-stuffed Piñata with Hanging Garden-inspired tribal percussion and crisp production. High point ‘The Shore’ is an ebbing and flowing tide of twinkling Victorialand era Cocteau Twins with the closer coming off like some forgotten girl group Spector spiritual. Fragile but far from frail.
7/10
Words by Anna Wilson
