The London post-punk band continue where they left off from last year’s debut, New Long Leg, with Florence Shaw’s beguiling, droll, laconic, surreal, stream-of-consciousness, darkly humorous spoken delivery over clever, off-kilter music. Guitarist Tom Dowse’s work echoes Pavement and other early 80s influences, particularly Johnny Marr, and is particularly strong on the alternative and woozy No Decent Shoes For Rain. Don’t Press Me, Kwenchy Cups, and Gary Ashby (about an escaped tortoise) have oddball and catchy melodies. Other standouts include Anna Calls From The Arctic, Hot Penny Day, and the title track. But it is Shaw’s throwaway lines that linger in the memory, from the beautifully banal and incredibly specific and vivid, to scene-setting, political to the surreal and non-sequitur. “Are those exposed wires good near the steam?”; “dog sled people”; the topic description of modern-day Britain where “nothing works, everything’s expensive and opaque and privatised”; or on Conservative Hell “they’re trying to mythologise everything”, closing with a gentle jazz sax solo. All songs amusingly brought a new dimension with surreal, visually arresting videos of objects. Out on 4AD.
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