Those from Brighton are the vanguard of the penultimate batch of young British rock, in its most restless post-punk side. Like other colleagues of his generation, Squid they absorb multiple influences from yesterday and today to create their own proposal in which they do not shy away from progressive rock and angular avant-garde concerns to account for a dystopian present. Everything is admirably reflected in a devastating live show that shows them as a safe value.
His second work, with an enigmatic title and curious cover, affects the findings of his debut, perhaps without the same element of surprise, but with plenty of incentives. The cerebral meets the visceral in a combination that is usually a winner if it is done with the musicality of the British. Written largely on tour for their well-received debut, the album opens with the hypnotic rhythm and mathematical guitars of “Swing (In A Dream)”. “Devil’s Den” lis finds comfortable in a melodic vagueness that explodes at the end, while in “Siphon Song” they sound almost like progressive Mogwai, with the voice of drummer and vocalist Ollie Judge buried in layers of Vocoder. With “Undergrowth” they fully immerse themselves in cornered funk with a resounding chorus, while with the extraordinary single “The Blade” explore his ability to move through rhythmic and melodic surprises, before moving on to the minimalist atmospheres of “After The Flash” and close with the percussive basses of “If You Had Seen The Bull’s Swimming Attempts You Would Have Stayed Away”.
The fascinating thing about this batch of bands seasoned at London’s Windmill Brixton is their ability to mutate into a thousand shapes, pointing in almost all directions, but without getting lost. the disk of Squid it has the urgency of those who need to get material out fast, but it’s no surprise that the group recorded at Real World, the excellent studio owned by Peter Gabriel. The ubiquitous Dan Carey (Fontaines DC, Goat Girl) returns to get all the juice out of the material he has in hand.