Liars—The Apple Drop

Recent Liars releases have felt like acrimonious breakup albums between founding member Angus Andrew and his own band. 2017’s TFCF was particularly difficult to get on with and, despite having its fans, felt at times like an uncomfortable, messy and spite-fuelled vanity project. For new album The Apple Drop, Liars’ mojo is restored by a talented selection of new blood; especially drummer Laurence Pike and lyricist (and Andrews’ wife) Mary Pearson Andrew.

The Apple Drop is not only more ambitious than its immediate predecessors, it’s more accessible. Liars’ typical weirdness takes the backseat in an album propelled by more infectious (and more conventional) melodies than the band has ever produced before. Edgier fans won’t be thrilled to hear “Liars go radio-friendly”—but they’d be turning their backs on some impeccably constructed material. Andrews’ knack for putting together a great, straightforward tune—and to incorporate others’ ideas—is a surprise that’s both revelatory and welcome.

‘Big Appetite’ is probably the purest example of The Apple Drop’s M.O. It’s a bit like a Stereophonics song, except it’s written and performed by people who are actually trying. And on the other end of the scale you have ‘Sekwar’, which mixes a Baxter Dury drawl and the sort of instrumental you’d expect from Thom Yorke (better than it sounds). In all instances Andrews’ collaborators absolutely make this album. Laurence Pike’s drums are brilliant without exception and slot neatly into a canvas of performers who sound like they’ve known each other for years.

Special notice must be given, too, to the album’s engineering. The vastness of its sound belies its modest budget, like Andrews and company hijacked Kanye’s ridiculous pop-up studio in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium changing rooms and made use of all his very very expensive computery things.

The sum of these parts is a fresh, vibrant and approachable course-correction for Liars—a band who, just a few months ago, were on the ropes. The best comeback since Rocky IV.  

The Apple Drop is available for purchase and streaming here.

Words: Andrew O’Keefe

Trupa Trupa—I’ll Find

Trupa Trupa are one of the most earnest and hard-working bands currently working. It’s no wonder frontman Grzegorz Kwiatkowski is an avowed Werner Herzog fan; after all, he’s heading a band who are practicing acolytes of the German director’s artistic aspirationalism.

This EP’s opening track, ‘Fitzcarraldo’, takes its name from the Herzog film which most clearly embodies this attitude—the story of a visionary who, against accusations of folly, hauls his steamer over a steep Peruvian hill to clear a meander in the Amazon river. It’s a film which explores ambition’s many costs, but overall champions the supreme value of integrity and vision. Trupa Trupa strive in Fitzcarraldo’s uncompromising, unapologetic shadow. On this track they make a similar glittering bid for ascension. We climb the hill with them, near wordless, dragging the dirge of a bad day behind.

It’s a newly warm sound for the band—the shimmer and the intimacy of recordings shines through in unprecedented clarity. ‘End of the Line’ feels devotional—even romantic—and positions a ceaseless chant of its title as a promise, rather than a curse. We are directed to focus on the pleasure of the journey, to fuzz and forget the finality of our destination.

‘Invisible Door’ is a psychedelic romp, even going so far as to incorporate flanged vocals and a flute line. It’s not pastiche, though, incorporating these potentially goofy elements with distinction and tact. It’s got the same energy as when Fever Ray whipped out the panpipes on her self-titled debut album. It’s a luminous track, dappled by a canopy of punchy bass; something altogether more sincere than the glorified car-advert-music of “expensive sounding” neo-psych posers like Tame Impala.

‘I’ll Find’ rounds things off—a Neu!-style jam which retains its peers’ warmth but injects the EP with grand scale. It’s a shimmer of sweet drones, melding in harmonies; a lush convoy which briefly passes light through a bleak evening. This sensory rush is I’ll Find in a microcosm: a beautiful, bewildering visit from silent strangers. I’ll Find is Trupa Trupa’s least lyrical release—but it’s also one of their most poetic.

I’ll Find is available for purchase and streaming here.

Words: Andrew O’Keefe

Battles — Juice B Crypts

Battles have long lived in the shadow of their debut LP, Mirroring. The release was so refreshing in 2007 it felt like having the top of your brain taken out and scrubbed clean with a toothbrush. Since then, the band has lost two members. It's now comprised of polymath Ian Williams and legendary drummer John Stanier.

The band's downsizing has necessitated a shift in sound. On Juice B Crypts, electronics budge to the fore, and an increased number of guest vocalists appear. Oddball synthesisers and pedal effects substitute previous albums' crushing, math-inflected riffs. There are moments which recall Oneohtrix Point Never's Age Of, or even 80s pastiche act Com Truise.

This drastic switch-up was necessary in a band who had been beginning to stagnate. Though the joy and simulated spontaneity of Mirroring is never matched, this LP displays more than enough new strengths to carry it by. Juice B Crypts is Battles' first album which doesn't feel as though it is trying to simulate Mirroring. Its independence, experimentation, and freedom find the remaining band members in their element.

Stanier's drumming is, predictably, excellent. And Williams' performances are spirited and eccentric. So much of what always worked in Battles remains — but now it's reinvigorated; less risk-averse.

Perhaps the best example of how Battles' new, stripped-down lineup works is in the absence of vocals on Juice B Crypts. The whirring and clanging of the band's guitar work is thrown into new relief. A cold danger wraps itself around every second of charm on this album. While this may not sound like a positive quality, it's all set up for a surprising, warm and elliptical final minute (you’ll have to listen to find out). As it comes to its end, Juice B Crypts proves Battles still have a few surprises left.

Juice B Crypts is available to stream and purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Richard Dawson — 2020

On 2020, Richard Dawson retains the extravagant and bristling sound of 2017's Peasant. And like Peasant before it, 2020 has been described as Dawson's most accessible work. Compositions have been further simplified and refined, a habit Dawson has tended towards with each successive release. This by no means portends a compromised or watered-down collection of material. Dawson has always left more than enough meat to reward attentive listeners.

In contrast to the frothing, fire-ant ridden compost-heap pastorality of Peasant, 2020 wanders into urban spaces. But it's still uncomfortable. What Dawson called its 'concrete grey' has acne scars of sad, brutalist decrepitude and quiescence. And Dawson's sound still has that timelessness to it — the result of his straddling of Britain's sonic history. One foot in the contemporary, the other in ancient British folk traditions.

Like its Celtic forebears, 2020 impresses by juggling pomp and earnestness. The LP's lead single, 'Jogging', is exceeded in honesty only by its own bombast. Songs run on for twice as long as you'd expect, muddling beautifully through their strange structures and arrangements. Dawson has a knack for swerving his material in the opposite direction you'd expect. He has always excelled in yanking the floor from his listeners, leaving them afloat and receptive.

This tailored vacuum is the scaffold under which Dawson builds his lyrics. To call his songs parables would imply they are didactic. Instead, Dawson’s tracks present focused and isolated flashes which, when combined, form a detailed whole. He does, with few and simple words, what barely any currently working songwriters can even aspire to.

Dawson never has to stretch to find the truth. He just talks about how he's feeling, and, almost by accident, keys into something universal. Lyrics which can, to new listeners, feel confrontational soon reveal themselves as affable. They find broadness in their specificity. 2020 is naked and forthright, but it's personal; never loaded with an agenda. Unless you count trying to raise money for the British Red Cross.

Richard Dawson’s 2020 is available for purchase and streaming here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe