Never by Micachu and the Shapes

There are no templates. There’s a sense that Micachu’s songs aren’t written, but birthed; thrown at the wall like a Jackson Pollock painting; a collage of sound and ideas.

For those with an adventurous sensibility, it will be a pure delight.

Micachu and the Shapes have retained their knack for producing an accomplished smorgasbord of sound on Never, but have done so without alienating listeners or sounding tired.

Unselfconscious and joyfully untrammelled, most importantly Never is charmingly weird – that quality so coveted by indie chancers everywhere.

The main glue on Never, and what elevates it slightly above Jewellry, is the low tone of everything. 

It's all but impossible to hear the band's cacophonous sonic treatments and counterintuitive structures as things that are being done to a batch of songs-- they are the songs. 

Never is a bold step forward, but one that sacrifices the sugar-rush tweaking to solid if uninspiring ends.

The way Never is rendered is too claustrophobic and vertiginous, rarely giving you a chance to find your bearings within the tightly packed soundscapes.