Woooo, this is a great record!
With an opening track (‘I Can’t See The Sun‘) whose rhythm section vividly recalls The Specials‘ classic 1981 chart-topper ‘Ghost Town‘, and instrumentation more in line with Bristol’s trip-hop scene of the early nineties, Evenfall grabs you from the very first instant. It’s not necessarily representative of the rest of the record though, as ‘Death By Entertainment‘ is more confrontational, going head to head with the listener and incorporating elements of The Prodigy, Asian Dub Foundation and even discreet, choppy guitar blasts that bring to mind Will Sergeant’s work in Echo and The Bunnymen.
‘Chicago Town‘ starts as though it’s going to be a more bare-bones affair, but it’s interspersed with the kind of ‘wall of noise’ guitars that you’d associate with shoegaze, and possesses a breathtakingly dramatic aura that lets you know that this is an album which is not going to be off your turntable much this year.
The title track is a woozy, yet intense, eerie foray through the late-night tunnels of your mind (if they even exist. I mean, I never even considered they did until I heard this album. See? It’s a mind-expanding record too!) and ‘Gone West‘, which concludes side one is a misty, early hours piece that is as graceful as it is unsettling.
‘Tunnel Vision‘ kicks off side two, a trance-like two-word mantra repeated amongst a dizzying backdrop that, somehow, lies somewhere between Faithless and Pere Ubu, while ‘BAKA‘ paints a picture of a savage storm at sea, perhaps. I mean, it probably isn’t meant to do that, but I feel like this is one of those records where the artist wants you to make your own interpretations of it. A storm and then a lull. That’s my take and I’m sticking with it.
Then comes ‘City Sleeps‘, a cinematic showpiece with Sam Akpro‘s mostly spoken word accompaniment. It’s wholly effective, highly evocative of the city at night, and not just because of its title. That’s followed by ‘Cherry‘, arguably the most uptempo of the ten tracks on Evenfall, and no less fruitful. This is the track that half makes you want to hit the dancefloor, and half makes you crave to speed along, top-down, around the vast canyons of America. It’s almost a relief when the gentle lullaby of ‘Cornering Lights‘ sees us out but we’re left more than satisfied, and with a sense that we have just witnessed the work of a true genius.
Evenfall is quite simply an absolutely spellbinding record, and is out now on ANTI-.
