Squid arrive at their second album a considerably completely different band than the one which made their 2021 debut ‘Vibrant Inexperienced Subject’. Their hungry curiosity, mixed with a want to push their very own boundaries, involves fruition on ‘O Monolith’ to create an album that’s ripe for discovery throughout a number of listens.
The powder keg of manic vitality that outlined early singles like ‘Houseplants’ and ‘The Cleaner’ has quietly advanced right into a extra subtle beast. The place as soon as there was congestion and a gentle sense of panic, there may be now endurance and a way of self-confidence that permits Squid to develop their concepts throughout time and area.
Lead single ‘Swing (In A Dream)’ is available in on an unsure mattress of keys, however quickly blossoms right into a wealthy, stressed palette of sonic tampering. Writhing, wormy strips of guitar, muffled drum beats, ambient synth chirrups and handheld brass interludes showcase a band that has absolutely embraced the capability of the skilled studio as an experimental device.
Squid are extra than ever in melody, as exemplified by ‘After The Flash’ – though they do submerge its tunefulness beneath a affected person guitar riff, a playful, psych rock-indebted keyboard line and a firmly locked-in motorik rhythm. Choose’s vocals are additionally extra mellifluous than ever, as on the outro to ‘The Blades’ the place he pushes himself past his pure secure area and into markedly extra technical and weak territory, with some aplomb.
On ‘Undergrowth’, nonetheless, Choose is animated by the philosophical thought of animism, through which inanimate objects possess non secular dimensions. He imagines his mortal existence as being certain contained in the bodily constraints of a bedside desk, singing with a straight face: “Put your thumb and fingers round my neck / The picket knob on a cupboard / Pull me open and see what’s inside”.
‘Satan’s Den’, named after one of many Bristol-based band’s native real-life monoliths, bears a decidedly extra creeping menace, loaded to the brim as it’s with references to English pagan and folkloric supernature. Based mostly on Vinegar Tom, a 1976 feminist play by Caryl Churchill set within the Center Ages, there may be grime underneath the fingernails of the tune, a way of the band digging via their native earth in pursuit of one thing significant that they will rightfully name their very own.
That temper is echoed on ‘Siphon Tune’, which is extra haunted by the longer term than the previous as a sci-fi-flavoured synth smothers the monitor and a robotic voice ‘sings’ about internet-era paranoia. Spectral voices hang-out the background of the tune, however, unexpectedly, the robotic finds his groove because the tune progresses, constructing to an unsettling mixture of sassy cyber-disco and ‘Child A’-like existential dread. If Squid could make daring, experimental music sound as enjoyable as this, then they may take some stopping.
Particulars
Launch date: June 9
Document label: Warp Information
