Their new album ‘No Sign of Life’ captures a hypothetical scenario that the end of the world is upon us, through raucous tracks combined with dialogue pieces to keep us connected to the story we’re being told.
The album starts with a 1940’s style emergency announcement on track 1 titled ‘LOG CH-29:Emergency Override’. This announcement gives us, the listeners, an idea for the scene being set for the duration of the album.
The radio callout tells us that backup power is the only thing keeping them running and urges listeners to conserve what power they have. This leads us into track 2, ‘Dancing at the end of the world’, which opens with an energetic guitar riff and a punchy drum track, followed by rebel-like vocals. The lively track then takes a turn, into an almost doomy bridge, giving the album a promising start after an almost ethereal but hard-hitting breakdown, we’re taken into an assertive guitar riff, throwing us straight into track 3.
Track 3 is a follow-up radio announcement titled‘ LOG CH-46 Outpost Delta’, which takes us further into the story of what the album is trying to tell us, almost taking us through to the next chapter if it were a book. We hear from a character named ‘Izzy’ who tells us she has been trying to find signs of life by communicating through messages in bottles thrown into the ocean.
‘Hurricane’ or track 4 begins with a hypnotic guitar melody which quickly progresses into something heavier and more explosive. This is for sure a full-bodied, toe-tapping number.
Into track 5, and we get another snippet into the story through another radio announcement, ‘LOG CH 71 – Forest Recon’. Listeners are made aware that there are no signs of life, which gives us not only the track that inspired the album title but also how isolating and quiet the world has now become. We’re given an idea of stillness. During this announcement, the speaker also exclaims, “I’ve been walking 3 days straight, the forest to the North..Something’s in it, I hear it at night”, which proceeds nicely into track 6 ‘Whispers’, which opens with the lyric ‘I hear whispers through the trees’
Track 7, known on the album as ‘Recovered file’, acts as a sort of interlude which abruptly throws us into track 8, ‘Sell Yourself’. An aggressive drum track and bold bass provides a bouncy rhythm section. With hard-hitting lyrics coming in, this expressive song is easily the heaviest track on the album. An organic guitar solo leading into a short beefy bass solo which would have any live crowd clapping to the tempo in unison.
As we find ourselves getting to the end of the story, with track 9 comes more scene-setting dialogue. Here, we’re told there may be signs of life, however, could it be a distress call? Could it be bait? Who knows?! During the dialogue of track 9, the speaker known as Michael states, “Maybe I’m chasing ghosts”, which nicely runs into track 1,0 aptly named ‘Chasing Ghosts’.
Another electrifying track bringing us sharp guitar riffs, crushing drums and those rebel-like vocals we heard initially in ‘Dancing at the end of the world. ‘Chasing Ghosts’ is an articulate, powerful song for sure, that catchy chorus will be stuck in your head before you know it.
We’re now onto the eleventh and final song on the album, so how does it end? With a final announcement over the radio. We hear that we’re now indeed at the end of the world. We know this by being told “generators are coughing”, “fires on the horizon” & “smoke that never clears”. This is a perfect way to end and round up the album, as we’re taken through a series of events through dialogue tracks and vocal tracks, which is an unusual but outstanding concept for an album.
If you enjoyed this album, look out for their new single ‘New Friends’ coming later in the year!
Written by Sian Evans.
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