KNEECAP - "FENIAN" (2026)

I, like many others, was put onto KNEECAP in late 2024 following the UK's government at the time attempting to pull an arts grant the group won in response to their activism and criticism of the UK's support for Israel's genocide in Gaza. The band took the government to court and won, raising their profile (and notoriety) significantly. Their debut album, Fine Art, came out earlier that year and when I listened through after catching wind of the group, I thought had some real highlights on it that showcased the groups unique and in-your-face personality, but they had some room to grow on the instrumental side of things. The heavy 90's dance influence on the beats suited the group's attitude well, but the individual instrumentals themselves didn't really grab me in the way the vocals and politically charged lyricism did.

During 2025, their presence in public culture only grew as their continued activism for Palestine resulted in their US visas being revoked (and forcing them to cancel a tour), and Mo Chara was charged for terrorism offences after a video of him emerged holding a Hezbollah flag at a gig in 2024 (these charges were similarly dropped). So everyone has been eagerly awaiting what would entail with the bands follow-up FENIAN. Fenian is a term given originally to medieval Irish warriors that then become reappropriated to be used for Irish republicans and later a slur for Irish Catholics. So unsurprisingly, given the title and the band's recent controversies, FENIAN is an even more politically charged and pointed record than the debut. Fine Art had plenty of overt political moments, but there was just as much focus on humour, drugs and the groups party-boy lifestyle (there's literally a track called Rhino Ket that's about k-holing on some really strong ketamine on it). FENIAN does away with most of the more ridiculous moments, and the trio bring on producer Dan Carey to enhance the more serious and poignant tone.

Off the bat Dan's production style is noticeable. The beats are grimier and more sinister, with some tracks such as Carnival and Occupied 6 having a nocturnal trip-hoppy feel to them. Carnival is a scything takedown of the British authorities for the complicity in the genocide in Gaza and the targeting of Mo Chara for his on stage antics. The post chorus features catchy group chanting of "Free Mo Chara, Free free Mo Chara". The following song, Palestine is a gnarly grime track with a guest feature from Palestinian rapper Fawzi. The song is not only striking for its sinister instrumental, but also for being performed entirely in Gaelic and Arabic. I think it takes some real bollocks to put a song on the record that the vast majority of the group's English speaking audience would not understand. But it also shows how the universal struggle against oppression transcends borders and language. Lairs Tale takes on Keir Starmer specifically - calling him "Netanyahu's bitch and a genocide armer" against a storming party-rap beat.

The manic party vibes continue into the middle of the record with the title track and Big Bad Mo. FENIAN is electric with the chanted 'spell it out' hook and dance-punk groove. The song also also samples Casiokids' Fot i Hose which is most commonly known as the transition music in the comedy series Friday Night Dinner - which just amuses me. Big Bad Mo's techno beat is less of my thing, but the propulsive beat keep the track moving at a speedy pace. I do like the little instrumental breaks that feature some hazy synths and house-y, staccato piano passages. The jungle bassline of Headcase is similarly breakneck, but the catchy hook and bouncy rhythm keep me engaged.

The back end of the record once again returns to the darker, more sinister sound of the first few songs. Occupied 6, mentioned earlier, has this chugging post-industrial beat that perfectly pairs with the lyrical content about growing up in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Gael Phonics has an off-kilter, lopsided beat that really draws me in. The song sounds like it's about to stumble over itself with the wonky syncopated piano stabs and funky bassline. Cocaine Hill has washes of woozy psychedelic guitars smeared across a scratchy trip hop beat. The song feels so tense and uneasy, a perfect reflection of the lyrical content focusing on the struggle of addiction. The closer, Irish Goodbye, similarly feels like the musical equivalent of the concept of an 'Irish Goodbye'. The song is a relatively lowkey and spacious tune that sneakily winds down the album - there's no big all-out finale for FENIAN and I think that it really works to be honest.

I will say the record starts a little slowly, with the opener Éire de Geo basically being an atmospheric intro, and the grime beat on Smugglers & Scholars being fairly standard (and grime is a genre that doesn't always click for me, so the lack of flair here only compounds the fact that it doesn't draw me in that much). An Ra and Cold at the Top, on the second half of the album, are both also fine enough but I'm not really gravitating towards them compared to some of the more in your face songs that precede them.

FENIAN is an improvement on Fine Art in pretty much every way. It's lyrically more pointed and focused, and features way more interesting and varied instrumentals to boot. There's a couple of songs I could take or leave, but on the whole it's a really well rounded record. I was already excited to see KNEECAP at Primavera, and now I am even more so.

Top Tracks: Carnival, Palestine, Liars Tale, FENIAN, Occupied 6, Gael Phonics, Cocaine Hill, Irish Goodbye

7/10

TV Girl - "Who Really Cares" (2016)

 

Continuing on with the Primavera line-up, another artist I've gone back to a few times is TV Girl. The band are fairly high up on the poster and have a couple of songs with over a billion streams on Spotify, so I'm surprised that I haven't really heard anything about them before. From their Wikipedia page, they're Californian and blew up on bandcamp, and still to this day entirely independent. Not much else on them is readily available. I've listened to a couple of their records, and this is the one that has those big streaming songs - and therefore the one I've pain the most attention to.

Who Really Cares is best described as an indie pop record that draws from a lot of 90's alternative scenes, a bit of neo-psychedelia, a bit of alt dance, a bit of trip hop and electronica. What results is a very light and summery sounding album that's very easy on the ears when I've had it on in the background while working or out on a walk in the sunshine. However, when listening to it with a bit more attention in order to talk about it here, the cracks have really started to show for me.

While the genres that TV Girl are calling back to are all ones that I'm a big fan off, they don't really do all that much with these styles other than the surface level basics, making the whole aesthetic of the album feel rather derivative and half baked. I don't think this would be quite as notable if it was a crop of really well written and engaging songs, but the tunes are really just not there. The songwriting is pretty basic and very much relying on the tropes of the genres being called back to to give them some personality that wouldn't be there otherwise. I think what has really soured my opinion of the record was paying more attention to the lyrics. They basically read as a shitty guy being bitter and jealous of an ex. There's no story or interesting angle here, and the whole thing comes off pretty immature and just rubs me wrong way.

The songs I like the most on the record are the ones that lean into the looser and dancier neo-psych and alt dance genres. Opener Taking What's Not Yours is build around a jazzy horn sample and a breakbeat loop, and features some of the better lyrics on the record about the stuff left behind at an ex partners place after a breakup, with a reference to an unread copy Gravity's Rainbow to highlight the protagonists pretentiousness. (Do The) Act Like You've Never Met Me has a textbook jangly baggy/Madchester groove that I can find myself getting into (even if it is the most by the numbers version of it possible). The layered up synths, gentle breakbeat and warbly sampled background vocals sound straight out of an Ibiza chillout room.

Who Really Cares is an album of diminishing returns. On first listen when not paying to much attention, I liked the dreamy and chilled out vibe. On the second, I noticed the stylistic derivativeness. On my most recent listens while writing this, I've grown tired of the unimaginative songwriting and the boring and kind of shitty lyrical content. Maybe TV Girls stuff will hit a little more after a few pints in the sun, but on tape it really struggles to make an impression.

Top Tracks: Taking What's Not Yours

4/10

Big Thief - "Double Infinity" (2025)

 

Next up on the Primavera docket is Double Infinity, the 2025 album from indie folk outfit, Big Thief. I have been listening to a lot of artists on the line up who's names I know but have never listened to before and Big Thief has been one of the ones I have been gravitating towards for relistens. Apparently, their previous album to this, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, is regarded as their best - but as an 80 minute double album I've been more inclined to put this one on as it fits in with when and how I listen to music these days.

Double Infinity is a laid back and hazy record, with the 9 tracks here layered in reverby, vaguely psychedelic production and Adrianne Lenker's twangy, mid-western vocals diving in and out of the mixes. The opener, Incomprehensible, tells the story of a car journey back from Lenker's grandmother's, where she's reminiscing about times past when she was younger and thinking about what is to come in her future. The layers of breezy guitar lines and twinkling chime bells really add to the nostalgic atmosphere. The loose, groovy drumming and jangly guitars of the following track Words give a very 90's indie / slacker rock vibe and they also similarly build to a noisy crescendo during the choruses. Much of the first half of the record leans into this soft, throwback folk and indie rock sound - perfect for a mid-afternoon slot at a festival. Los Angeles is more on the folk and americana side of things, with slow burning guitars and a chugging base line; and All Night All Day features congas as part of the percussion and pairs it with twinkly and reverby guitars.

The record really hits its stride at the mid-point, with the title track and No Fear. Double Infinity strips back a lot of the layers to let Adrianne's impassioned vocals shine through. The track returns to the themes of past and future, comparing them to two infinities - what was lost, and what is yet to come. The instrumentation slowly grows with intensity as the track progresses, making the song feel quite triumphant in a bittersweet kind of way. No Fear follows this by slowing the record right down and playing with the texture and timbre of the music over the course of the 7 minute tune. The song opens with a minute and a half intro with a repeated moody bass riff that really lets you sink into the atmosphere of the song. The track slowly introduces Adrianne's sultry vocals and noisy additional guitars that layer up as the song progresses. It is eery but very warm sounding song, like finding some tranquil haven in the depths of a dense forest.

Unfortunately past this point in the record, it somewhat loses my interest, as I feel like it's shown me all it has to offer and has nothing else up it's sleeve. Grandmother is another woozy indie folk jam that doesn't do all that much with it's 6 minute runtime even with the inclusion of ambient pioneer Laraaji on backing vocals. The jangle pop of Happy With You is definitely my kind of thing on paper, but the vocals on the song are incredibly repetitive. It's so overbearing that it must be the point, but it really doesn't work and makes the song a bit annoying to be honest. How Could I Have Known returns to a more stripped back folksy style to close the album out, and is certainly better than the last two tracks, but it doesn't really do enough to reengage me in the records final moments.

I'm glad I've given the time to Double Infinity, as there is stuff here that I do like that probably would've just breezed past if I hadn't given it multiple listens. But as whole record, it's a bit hit and miss and honestly a little too soft and dependant on it's laid back production for my taste. It can quite easily descend into background music if I'm not intentionally listening; which is probably why I've gravitated to it while I've been working, but struggling to really dig into the lyrics and themes when giving it my sole focus. I'm definitely going to check out Big Theif's set as I think it'll be a good time, but I'm not sure I'll put Double Infinity on again in full after I return home.

Top Tracks: Incomprehensible, Words, Double Infinity, No Fear

6/10

Gorillaz - "The Mountain" (2026)

Gorillaz' post hiatus records have been a bit hit and miss, with the project feeling like it lacked a consistent direction from album to album. Humanz stuck out like a sore thumb with its darker, more drab atmosphere on first release. And while musically it has aged better than I ever thought it would, lyrically it sounds so dated with it's core conceit of "what if Trump won the 2016 election" when we've had a decade of the man dominating the news cycle. It is also too long and a complete mess, jumping from style to style with no cohesion between tracks. The Now Now was a sort of half course correct, being are more stripped back, simpler album with less features and a more consistent vibe. There's some good songs on there, but as a whole it is a fairly forgettable release from the band that drew comparisons to 2010's The Fall (a somewhat throwaway side album that Damon Recorded on his Ipad while on tour for Plastic Beach).

Song Machine was a complete change of pace, with Damon and Jamie eschewing the traditional album rollout for a series of 'episodes' comprised of a standalone track built around the style and skillset of the song's feature. This resulted in the best crop of Gorillaz songs since Plastic Beach, but removed any of the broader themes and imagery the project is known for. A season 2 was in the works, but for some reason was scrapped in favour of a more traditional record, Cracker Island, that leaned back into the cartoon band's 'lore' for the first time in a while, but really didn't do much with it's occult theme and is honestly the most tired and by the numbers Gorillaz album yet.

The Mountain, is once again another switch in direction for the band, with the first rumblings of the record a couple of years ago claiming that it would be a spiritual sequel to Plastic Beach. And in some ways it very much is. The record is a big, ornate sounding album that is start studded with features, and has some core themes that run throughout without being too restrictive to date the album. But The Mountain is very much its own beast, with two distinct factors that really make it stand out from the previous Gorillaz cannon. The first is that, following on from a couple of trips to India that Jamie and Damon took, the record features a notable influence from traditional and contemporary Indian music genres - which is something entirely new to the band. The second is that the record features a core theme on death and the afterlife (inspired by both Damon and Jamie losing their fathers in the run up to recording), and such Damon has decided to dig the Gorillaz archives for recordings from previous collaborators who have since passed themselves. These posthumous features are all very tastefully included and to someone not in the know, would just feel like they were recorded for the album and not repurposed from sessions from decades past.

The record opens up similarly to Plastic Beach with a big ornate, orchestral intro. However in the place of the swooning strings of the Sinfonia Viva Orchestra is an ensemble of Indian and Indian-origin musicians playing a piece in the style of traditional Indian classical music. What results is quite an eery and mysterious opening to the record which leads into the next track, The Moon Cave, perfectly. The core of the The Moon Cave is textbook modern Gorillaz: dreamy, whimsical synthpop with a few extra elements thrown in to spice things up. The sitars and flutes continue on from the title track, and are meshed with the hazy synths and a beat switch up and hip-hop verse from Black Thought and the late Dave Joliceour of De La Soul. The track is pretty low-key, but has massively grown on me since release with the dreamy atmosphere and themes around going to 'the moon cave' as a sort of place to metaphorically wash yourself in the water there and let go of the past to make a fresh start.

The next song on the record, The Happy Dictator featuring Sparks, was released as the lead single and is the first of several that deal in the record's other major theme - that of power, control, autocrats and false prophets. Inspired by how Sapamurat Niyazov, the dictator of Turkmenistan from the dissolution of the USSR to his death in 2006, banned bad news in the country as a form of control over his subjects. The track plays into Sparks typical zaniness and pairs it with synthy Gorillaz sound, and because of that very much felt like a Song Machine off-cut on first listen. It certainly works well within the albums context, but I wouldn't say it is the strongest Gorillaz single out there. The God of Lying, featuring Joe Talbot of IDLES, falls into similar territory for me. The Track is built around a dubby off-kilter rhythm that feels like a softer Clint Eastwood, but lacks the punch and genuine weirdness that made the song stand out so vividly 25 years ago. Talbot is also doing his more dejected 'arty' approach to the vocals that has characterised the more recent IDLES records, but its a style I just don't think off he pulls off in much of an interesting way. His strength was always in the rage and fury of the early IDLES records, not this much more wordy, 'tasteful' approach. The song is by no means bad, but taken in isolation outside of the album just feels like an echo of previous Gorillaz highs.

The Hardest Thing and Orange County are a pair of songs that sit together between The Happy Dictator and The God of Lying, and follow more in the line of The Moon Cave revolving around coming to terms with grief and loss. They are a sombre and melancholic duo, with The Hardest Thing essentially serving as a triumphant woodwind and trumpet intro to the more poppy and uptempo Orange County. The songs are direct in their message about letting go of a mentor figure and the worries about living up to their legacy, and very much hit the spot - they feel very end credits-y. As the middle of the record approaches, the two themes start to meld together with The Empty Dream Machine, where Damon as 2D sings about the struggle to come to terms with grief and the desire to look for external solutions to the pain. The song has subtle Indian influences but is one of those moody, slightly autotuned R&B cuts that are always my least favourite on a Gorillaz album. It's fine but does nothing for me.

It's only when we get to The Manifesto that I feel like the album is doing something truly new for a Gorillaz record. The song is a seven minute, multipart banger that initially fuses Indian pop with Latin Rap courtesy of guest rapper Trueno, but then half way through flips on its lid into a hardcore hip-hop beat and a posthumous verse from D-12's Proof recorded when he was stranded in London with Damon in London in the wake of 9/11. The verse does feel slightly shoehorned in to fit the albums themes, but you can really feel the rage and fury in Proof's vocals that it doesn't really matter to me. The song then flips back into dramatic, dancey final section to close it out. The only song that goes nearly as hard as The Manifesto is Damascus, featuring Omar Souleyman and Yasiin Bay (aka Mos Def). The song is built off demos from the Plastic Beach era, and with the Yasiin Bay feature it really feels like Sweepstakes part 2. I really like the song and the Arabian influence is really cool, but the way it builds and builds to a frenzied climax is one for one Sweepstakes. I can say the same thing about Delirium, featuring Mark E. Smith. Mark's vocals are clearly taken from the Glitter Freeze sessions, resulting in the song following its lead. I'm fine with that, as Glitter Freeze is a really unique song and more of that is welcome - but I wouldn't say it's something new and ground-breaking for the group.

To continue with the Plastic Beach comparisons, my only real complaint with that record is that the final leg feels a little drawn out (despite there not really being any one song to single out as weaker than the rest), and I feel the same about The Mountain. The Shadowy light is a synth-driven doo-wap ballad about accepting that everything and everyone comes to an end at some point, and features some of the most prominent Indian language vocals on the record by Asha Bholse, but the overall tune I can take or leave. Similarly Casablanca and The Sweet Prince are dreamy, dreary synthpop tunes that breeze by this point in the tracklist (the album is over an hour long, so the fact that it slows down in the final leg really stands out). Luckily The Mountain ends pretty strongly with The Sad God, which really wraps up the albums themes in a nice little bow, being from the perspective of a benign god looking down at the world and lamenting in all the man made horrors that we as a species have created. It musically calls back to the title track making the whole experience feel very complete. It might actually be the best closer to a Gorillaz record thus far (Pirate Jet is a better song, but feels more like a coda than a closer to me).

The Mountain is a bit of a mountain of a record, but I'm enjoying that for the first time since Plastic Beach, there is more to engage with on a conceptual level. It's not some era defining staple that Demon Days and Plastic Beach have become, but it's certainly a lot more interesting than most of Gorillaz' post-hiatus work. It does feel like it's living slightly in the shadow of Plastic Beach especially (with how much it clearly draws from those sessions and collaborators), and there aren't really any songs (bar The Manifesto) that show their strengths when taken out of the album context. It's almost the inverse of Song Machine. That record is pretty much all bangers but I very rarely listen to it as a full album because there's no cohesive theme or throughline. Whereas The Mountain really works as an album, but not as a collection of songs in isolation. I'm intrigued where Damon and Jamie go next with the project, because they certainly seem more invigorated with this record in interviews than they had been with the last few.

Top Tracks: The Mountain, The Moon Cave, The Hardest Thing, Orange County, The Manifesto, Delirium, Damascus, The Sad God

7/10

PinkPantheress - "Fancy That" (2025)

 

Continuing on with my journey through the Primavera line-up, I've chosen to keep with the y2k throwback theme with PinkPantheress' latest mixtape, Fancy That. PinkPantheress' rise has been pretty substantial over the years. I remember Pain blowing up on TikTok in the back end of the pandemic, then Boy's a Liar really broke her into the mainstream a couple of years ago, and now I'd say she's one of the biggest current gen UK popstars. I've heard plenty of her big songs on the internet and on the radio (and enjoyed them), yet this is my first time fully dicing into one of her projects.

For those who have (somehow) not heard a PinkPantheress song before, her bread and butter is self-produced, short and speedy fusions of early 2000's UK garage and dance pop. Her songs are snappy and run at a break-neck pace, jammed full of hooks with not a second wasted. This mixtape is 20 minutes long with nine tracks, without second of empty space or a moment to breath. The first half of the project in particular hits you with banger after banger. Illegal opens up the record with a bang, featuring a killer Underworld sample against a classic 2-step drumbeat and a damn catchy hook. "Is this illegal?, It Feels illegal" PinkPantheress asks on the topic of a naughty or forbidden romance. No wonder it blew up on TikTok. This then runs straight into the equally energetic Girl Like Me that flips Bassment Jaxx's Romeo into a garage jam. Tonight was the lead single for the record and features the most 'stuff' out of any of the songs here: a detailed narrative, layers of airy synths, a squelchy 808 bassline, several different melodic hooks. Pink's vocals are playful and fun. It seamlessly transitions into Stars, a track built around a brilliant sample of Just Jack's Starz in Their Eyes which is just pure childhood nostalgia for anyone around my age.

Unfortunately I do feel like the short track lengths and breakneck pace leave some of the tracks in the second half to feel a little less developed and densely packed as the front end of the project. Noises is over in a flash after not really doing much and Nice to Know You's cinematic strings voiced synths don't really do much for me, and the song lacks a punchy hook like many of the others here. Stateside has blown up as a big radio single thanks to the Zara Larsen featured remix, but I feel like structurally it is the most straightforward radio-friendly pop song here with less emphasis on the garage drumbeats and edgy synths. The Groove Armada sample is appreciated though. Romeo closes out the record with a bit more an upswing as it brings back the tension and dynamics of the earlier tracks.

There's some great stuff on Fancy That, but its over in a flash and so I find it hard to truly sink into the project. The combined with the somewhat weaker second half means I'm not sure I'd ever really come back to it in full, despite how much fun the highlights on the record are. I'm still definitely going to try to catch PinkPantheress at Primavera (clashes pending), as she has a full set's worth of bangers across her career now and her live show looks like it has a lot of energy.

Top Tracks: Illegal, Girl Like Me, Tonight, Stars

6/10

Oklou - "choke enough" (2025)

 

I'm heading to Primavera Sound in Barcelona this summer, and I thought it would be fun to go through the lineup and write about some of the artists as I give them a listen. Oklou is a French alt-pop / electro-pop artist. choke enough is her full length debut and made a lot of year end lists last year, and considering my enjoyment of the recent wave of girly synth-pop, I thought this was going to be my bag. However, it wasn't quite what I was expecting (based on my admittedly limited knowledge going in) and hasn't been something I have resonated with much at all.

Compared to the brash and personality driven pop records I've loved over the past couple of years, choke enough is more of an ambient pop and minimal electronic album. Not that that's a bad thing, but I clearly had my wires crossed when I heard 'y2k aesthetic' and expected something along the lines of a BRAT or Imaginal Disk. choke enough is nothing like these albums, the mixes are sparse and clean, and the melodies are restrained and just sort of breeze in and out of these tracks. The songs flow into each other in a way where if you're not paying much attention, you could easily miss that one has ended and a new one has started. At 13 tracks and 35 mins, the album progresses quickly, not really lingering on a single moment long enough to emphasise it.

I think that's why I'm not really clicking with the album, as it just breezes by, with the more pop-leaning tracks not really having enough personality to carry them; and the more ambient-leaning ones not really creating much of an interesting or enveloping sonic landscape. The core aesthetics of the album are fine enough, with the clean, airy synths and hazy, reverbed vocals and percussion. I can see why it got labelled with the y2k tag as it feels like a video game or sci-fi movie soundtrack from that era.

Out of the tracks here, the ones I enjoy the most are the ones that are more sparce and minimal, as they create more of a serene atmosphere that I'm liking more than the poppier, more synth driven cuts. thank you for recording makes good use of negative space to highlight the simple melody that sounds like its performed on a distorted, electronic flute or the like. obvious has subtle hints of horns that poke through the reverby synths. The title track is one of the stronger more poppy tracks, with a repeated melodic background vocals smothered in distortion and reverb. The thing is, while I like them while they're on, I'm not going to remember these tracks in the long run. I find by around the point of plague dogs in the second half, I'm pretty much done with the record's sound and style. It's pretty much played all its cards by that point, and they just don't do it for me.

I don't want to bash choke enough too much, as it's more of a case that this just wasn't for me rather than any issue with the actual quality or craftmanship here. Considering all the critical acclaim it has received, there's clearly a lot of fans out there for this. But yeah, it just doesn't do it for me.

Top Tracks: thank you for recording, obvious

5/10

The Last Dinner Party - "From The Pyre" (2025)

The Last Dinner Party really blew up in 2024 following the release of their debut album, a record that really liked and still do. I think it's a really fun and well written glam and pop rock record that I've regularly come back to since its release. I caught them live later that year, and they were already playing new material, so I am not surprised they have followed up with their sophomore quickly (although maybe a little surprised at how quickly, I think the lead single was released when the band was just about wrapping up their tour for the Prelude To Ecstasy).

That lead single is titled This is the Killer Speaking, and was one of the new songs played by the band when I saw them on tour. Musically and lyrically, it picks up right where Prelude To Ecstasy left off. It is a glammy and over-the-top pop rock banger telling the tale of a scorned lover out to get revenge on their ex. While the debut's lyrics were a bit more fiery and pointed, This Is The Killer Speaking leans more into the camp and it works. Not every song has to be pointed critique of patriarchal dynamics within society. The other song they played live was also one of the pre-release singles, being Second Best. The song is about exactly what it says on the tin, walking away from someone who treats you like you're second best. The track leans into the band's Sparks influence, having dramatic staccato vocal passages and a punchy rhythm section. The song just builds and builds into a frenzied climax and is easily my favourite song on the record.

The rest of From The Pyre really follows on from those songs, being just more of what made the first album great. On a musical level, the only really distinguishing feature is the switch from James Ford to Markus Dravs as producer, resulting in the strings taking a little more of a backseat on these tracks, replaced with punchier, more prominent guitars in the mix. Similarly, lyrically the band are playing around with a lot of the same ideas and themes as the debut, but in a less tight and cohesive way. All of the tracks on PTE reinforced one another in a way that I don't think they do as well here. The opener, Agnus Dei, revolves around desire and not feeling good enough for someone, comparing it to Catholic mass and the apocalypse. The song is good opener, with Abigail Morris' dynamic vocals and lush instrumentation; but if the song was packaged as part of a deluxe version of the debut I wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

Count The Ways feels a bit more distinct, featuring the more guitar heavy mixing I mentioned previously. Once again, the band are exploring themes of tortured love and wanting to stay with someone who is 'twisting the knife'. Rifle feels like a mid-2000s Muse track, with heavy use of loud-soft chorus-verse dynamics and pentatonic scales. The song explores the male desire for violence and killing; but unlike past songs where they've touched on these subjects, it's approached from a less feminine / romantic angle, but a more 'above it all' parental viewpoint. It's certainly an interesting perspective from the band; and I wish the song had bit more of a hook to go with it - because it isn't the most melodically developed song on the record and is sort of compensating with the brash guitars choral backing vocals.

Woman is a Tree kicks of the second half with a nice change of pace for the band, being a spooky, dramatic, folk tune. It sounds like some culty campfire tune - again with engaging themes around comparing womanhood to be a strong and stable tree that provides nourishment to those around it. I Hold Your Anger follows this up with a song that feels pretty run of the mill for the band at this point. The song is sung by the Keyboardist Aurora Nishevci rather than Abigail, which is the songs most unique element. Otherwise it's a fairly dramatic glam rock cut about a woman holding everything together in a relationship. Sail Away, similarly, is musically a pretty bog standard piano ballad that doesn't really grab me. I think the lyrics are pretty good, but they're wrapped up in an instrumental that I think is merely just fine.

The Scythe is the real showstopper of the second half. The song was originally written by Abigail years ago as a breakup song, but has morphed into a more general song about grief and loss overall. It is an absolutely massive sounding power-ballad with twinkling keys, a vintage 80's sounding drumbeat and layers upon layers of background strings and organs. Abigail wails the lyrics on the chorus "Don't cry, we're bound together / Each life runs its course" with so much passion and power it's hard not to feel some sort of emotive response to it. It's a shame that the closer, Inferno, follows this up with a bit of a dud. The song is a jangly indie rock song with subtle glam rock touches, but it really doesn't pay off the emotional weight of The Scythe and feels like a bit an unsatisfying way to end the record if I'm being honest.

From The Pyre is very much more of what worked on Prelude To Ecstasy. There are some genuinely great cuts on the album that are fine additions to the band's canon. However it does feel a little second album syndrome-y, with a couple of moments that feel like the band treading water and on the whole not feeling quite as tight and cohesive as the debut. I hope that with a couple of albums under their belt and being big names in British indie now, they can take just a little bit longer to craft album 3 into something with its own unique identity.

Top Tracks: Agnus Dei, Count The Ways, Second Best, This is the Killer Speaking, Woman is a Tree, The Scythe

7/10