Sorry - 925
925 opens with a sleazy, drowsy sax on Right Around The Clock, the vocal combination of Asha and Louis creates a disorientating experience and the weighty percussion only adds to this. After a quiet vocal breakdown, it explodes back into a chorus of clattering drums, piano and guitar. In Unison follows: a demonic, angular hit. Combining strings in a vertigo inducing drop, before switching gear into a shoulder shaking, tight angular beat which feels unnatural, but interesting.
Starstruck, one of the lead singles, is a real standout. With mechanised verses which switch into a glitchy chorus and then a dream-pop section with super tight production. The snares snap alongside whirring guitars and disorientating synth. Rosie is also constructed really well. It’s perfectly dreamy, chorused guitars squawk alongside what sounds like a derided curled lip delivery.
The sounds of Pavement, or Big Thief are perceptible. Perfect is a good example: like Pavement, or Big Thief – but heavier, the guitars thrash with greater velocity than any Pavement song, and certainly much more than Big Thief. Instead the similarity lies in the chords and rhythmic motifs –with the discordant changes and the punchy weight of the bass and drums. It could also be said that the character of some of the ‘drops’ resemble some more contemporary, more experimental hip-hop.
Wolf is split into a calming heady and gentle building melody which switches into a fiendish motif with scraping guitars and punchy bass. It climaxes and slips into the late-night soundscape that is the double-bass and sax combo of Rock n Roll Star. The atmosphere and colour that is created by the sounds in the album are strong. Whether it be through the competent use of a saxophone, or horn sections to create something uniquely late-night, or the use of keys or layered vocals as percussion devices. The curation is fantastic, and the production serves it well.
More is a strikingly potent track: with fuzzed guitar and vocals, and layers of screeching guitar which during the melodic sections create a real sense of threat. Wholly, with strange, abrupt changes, and pop melodies, Sorry have made a wonderful soundscape, combining moody menace and soothing darkness. Wonky guitars, multi-levelled percussion, unusual instrumental choices, combining the aloof delivery from Asha and Louis make it a charming and all-enveloping experience. While some of the initial singles didn’t seem especially ground-breaking, in making this album they have defined themselves as more than capable additions to the so-called post-punk scene emerging out of the British Isles.
8/10
