Talk about getting overtaken by events. Moving on from their noir-rock debut Columbia’s portrait of Britain as Orwellian dystopia, the second album from one of this country’s greatest rising bands captures the anger, anxiety and hopelessness of generation Brexit just as its title becomes its most relevant feature.
Summoning the frenzied, twisted spirits of the Bad Seeds, IDLES, solo John Lennon, Anna Calvi and Humbug-era Arctic Monkeys, they tackle the right-wing revolution on Something Wicked This Way Comes and the Trump-targeting Lunatic (With A Loaded Gun), satirise one-per-center greed on I Want Gold and bewail a world choked for profit on Rage At The Dying Of The Light – essentially Climate Change Suicide Pact Blues.
But in recent circumstances, the more claustrophobic personal despairs they explore through their titular character on tracks like Forty Days & Forty Nights, Circle Song and Black Glass will feel all the more relatable the longer lockdowns drag on.
We’re all stay-at-home psychopaths now, and this is – intentionally and inadvertently – the sound of our times.
