Neon Highwire Relate

Sanguine music and doleful lyrics aren’t natural bed fellows but when band member Steven Morgan’s decade long relationship ended during the writing album, the entire project took a nefarious turn. From the uncomfortable opening lyrics of Initialise to the discomforting stark honesty of Common Ground, the entire album resembles a voyeuristic journey into a man’s self-discovery. It’s a crisis of identity, morals and assumptions offering no justifications or bravado, just a window into the ugly truth.

Musically, Relate is a successful amalgamation of the textures and physicality of dance music riddled with gleaming, brain-leeching hooks and the bombast of dirty guitars. Though it’s a sonic tour-de-force that seldom remains static either structurally or in pace, a number of unified themes flow through the hyperactive squiggles giving the whole thing a cohesion which refuses to become predictable. It highlights three men at the top of their game, with each song so packed with ideas it rewards the listener from the first notes to the twentieth spin.

There’s nothing else out there that can touch this collection of songs. It stands both as an ambitious series of individual masterpieces and a collection that forms a compelling narrative from beginning to the end. If you had to choose between this album and a cheese sandwich, you would definitely choose this album. Even if it was really good cheese it really wouldn’t even be a difficult decision.

1. Initialise
2. M*E*G*A
3. Strategic Rail Freight Interchange
4. Bear At The Bus Stop
5. Just Suppose
6. Common Ground
7. (?°?°??? ???)
8. SRS BSNS
9. Incoherent Astronaut
10. Older Forests
11. Differences Demean Us
12. These Movies Have Become One Big Joke
13. ???? ?( ?-??)