An album that bewilders me. It's like somebody took an album from a band I'd like way more and somehow imbricated a regular NPL EP onto 9-14, like a tape splice that didn't go as planned. Because indeed, 1-8 is vastly superior to everything else put out by the band, and a masterclass at album flow on top of that. From the great intro track, 2 takes us to a seagull-infested beach in England with a bit of an rpg village OST atmosphere (and very subtly integrated vocals, which I find inspiring), then after the nice 3, 4 takes us to much darker places not unlike a good GYBE interlude. The flow into the lush again 5 is extremely well done, 6 gets to really cool oldschool synthy ambient whilst 7 has more drums, and 8 continues the niceness. Up to this point, the record is truly impressive in how well it ties vastly different atmospheres together, and is a massive improvement over the EPs which never showed much evolution or buildup of ideas. Then, heck knows why, 9-14 returns to regular NPL material, which I am hardly a fan of to start with, but in the context of this album where it ruins an otherwise excellent record feels infuriating. By 13 I wanted it to stop. The vocals are no longer subtle, they're just lazy and boring again. Then 15 brings back the quality with some instrumental psych, and it's like 9-14 never happened, with 16 starting on something super cool and unexpectedly abrasive, then transitioning back into lushness, 17 continuing it , and 18 transitioning superbly into a funky synthy groove. So good. I really don't know what the hell happened with this record. 3.6
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