A brilliant return from the Scottish electronic duo. Prophecy made me very excited for this album and it definitely lived up to my expectations. The stylistic range on this album is truly impressive, with moments of pure beauty (such as on You Retreat in Time and Space) and also some fairly unnerving moments, such as Blood in the Labyrinth. I found myself wondering if the review published by the Guardian was definitely for this album, as none of the flaws they described are present here.
I take back everything bad I said about Going Shopping, this is so much worse. The auto tuned vocals are absolutely agonising and even if that wasn’t an issue, the song is also really boring and lacks the catchiness of the previous single which was basically the only thing going for it.
The b-side is definitely stronger than Rock Music, which is unfortunately just a sloppy mess (to the point where I won’t be surprised if it turns out to just be a joke) however it is still quite lyrically clunky and also far too short. I don’t know what Charli is doing with this era, but I’m (fairly) happy to trust the process.
As someone from the North East of England, I’m always happy to see my local area get representation, even if it is via a jazz album that didn’t entirely click for me. I’ve never been huge on spoken word, so the passages on this album didn’t really land for me, however I actually really enjoyed the instrumental sections and it was great to see Greep get involved with this project, especially after his phenomenal 2024 album. Whilst I can’t see myself revisiting this ... read more
Whilst there is nothing particularly wrong with this album, and I actually found myself enjoying the instrumentals of every song, I couldn’t help but feel like the novelty of this group is starting to wear off. Whilst I agree with many of the political points made within the songs, a lot of them feel like they are just treading the same ground over and over again. The schtick of being one of the only artists who are willing to address these themes in their music doesn’t really work ... read more