STACK #156 Oct 2017

MUSIC REVIEWS

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Wolf Alice Visions Of A Life Wolf Alice dispel any myths around following up a hugely successful debut album, with the triumphant Visions Of A Life . Heavenward opens with dissonant guitars that expand into shimmering shoegaze, perfectly complementing Ellie Roswell’s enchanting vocal. Yuk Foo completely changes direction, feeling something like an electric shock as Roswell’s fury is channelled into some impressive swearing. Beautifully Unconventional and Space &Time brings the band’s high energy to the fore, while the resplendent Don’t Delete The Kisses is equal parts dreamy and intriguing. Visions Of A Life is Wolf Alice revitalised and in charge, while managing to be impressively Torres Three Futures On one hand are moments you experience and then forget. On the other hand moments you remember: fragmented images, sounds, scents and feelings pieced into the stories you tell your friends, your family, yourself. Brooklyn artist Torres is fascinated with both, and the distance between them. Her songs are powerful vignettes that include the conscious and unconscious self, filled with everyday details, hopes, regrets, reflections and resolutions. Torres, AKA Mackenzie Scott, has described the record as a celebration of the body, and there's a clear physicality to the music. Muscular guitar melodies and pulsing drum machine rhythms underscore vocals of varying intensity, sometimes impassioned in their rendering of human mysteries, and other times coolly removed. (Remote Control) SimonWinkler

Hundred Waters Communicating

"Are we communicating?" The question repeats over and over in the title track of Hundred Waters' new album. Each time, the phrase seems stranger, and the more it's sung the more obscure the words become until all meaning dissolves. It echoes the bigger disconnect at the heart of Communicating – these are songs about breakups, but also healing in the aftermath, and the search for peace. And the Florida trio explore both ends of the emotional spectrum with practiced skill. The elevated electronic pop of Particle is matched elsewhere by more melancholic moods, like the intimate downtempo feel of Fingers and the shimmering orchestral ballad Blanket Me . (Inertia) SimonWinkler

Slaughter Beach, Dog Birdie

Although it started out as an exercise for Modern Baseball’s Jake Ewald to clear out his writer’s block, Slaughter Beach, Dog quickly became its own entity; a fully-fledged vehicle for the sullen songwriter to express himself. Ewald’s debut solo record (following a pair of EPs) takes the

most cathartic pieces of MoBa – "Everything new is a little bit bad, and everything old turns you off" he hums on Bad Beer – and pairs it with mundane, ambiguous, observational lyricism. Gold And Green is a buoyant highlight, inspired album closer Acolyte is as expansive as it is delicately layered, and Sleepwalking plays out like a folk re-imagining of Sparkadia’s Talking Like I’m Falling Down Stairs . While the 10-track debut strums down the same lane as Wilco, Josh Pyke or even City & Colour, Ewald has created a little lane of his own via the genre shifts that sway through the record – and, at times, through each song. Some will say that this means Ewald doesn’t know what direction he is supposed to be heading in, but I think that’s exactly the point. (Lame-O Records/CookingVinyl)Tim Lambert

King Krule The OOZ At 19 tracks long, The OOZ has cinematic scope. That fits the mood: the guitars reverberating like they’re bouncing off underpass walls, Rhodes piano slinking through various scenes, and the pre-worn bruiser vocals of Archy Marshall all continue the picturesque industrial romance of debut 6 Feet Beneath The Moon . Where his debut featured sneering, leering guitar pop amid genre-bending, The OOZ is all Hammett, Chandler, and Bogart, doubling down on his jazz influences, conjuring an ambiguous downtown where smoke billows from every sewer grate, fires burn in every alley, and mysteries lurk in every window. Like in all those stories, the protagonist here is inevitably ineffectual. The OOZ confirms Marshall as a preternatural no-hoper. (XL/Remote Control) Jake Cleland

Arch Enemy Will To Power

Ne Obliviscaris Urn

Arch Enemy’s 11th studio album Will To Power is armed to the teeth with big riffs, blazing solos, memorable melodies and arena-ready choruses. The band’s early fan base will forever clutch the trifecta that is Black Earth , Stigmata and Burning Bridges , but Arch Enemy have been refining their sound for ages now, so their move towards a style that is more reminiscent of Megadeth, rather than Replusion, shouldn’t be a surprise. Will To Power is easy to digest and some might even say predictable, but it’s Arch Enemy through and through. Current fans wouldn’t have it any other way. (EMI/Century Media) Simon Lukic

Ne Obliviscaris have taken the music industry head on, creating a new business model to allow them to survive as a band. A successful crowd-funding campaign and Patreon fund have drawn equal amounts of support and disapproval, but despite this, Ne Obliviscaris understand that it’s the music that counts. Urn matters. It succeeds in combining the intricacies people expect from the band with enough measured dynamics to balance the progressive nature of the material. Urn is another impressive musical statement from a band that is pushing the boundaries of the extreme metal scene in more ways than one. (Rocket/Season Of Mist) Simon Lukic

versatile with their sound. (Liberator Music/Dirty Hit) Holly Pereira

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