ALT-J // An Awesome Wave LP
Newman’s sighs between singing makes ‘Bloodflood’ sound creepy and like a panic attack during an acid trip.
Release date- 28th May 2012
ALT-J - An Awesome Wave LP (Infectious Music) Alt-J’s ‘An Awesome Wave’ is a medley of genres; with folky vocals does dubstep, electro and rock and roll, it manages to makes geeky lyrics sound... somehow sexy. (Even the band's name means the shortcut to triangle on a Mac!). Lyrically, ‘Tessellate’ declares lead singer Jo Newman’s love of triangles and innuendo and musically, its use of smouldering guitar riffs gives this song a dangerous edge. ‘Breezeblocks’ follows, changing genres completely to an RnB sound with an alternative-rock feel to it and has the desperate but beautiful plea of ‘Please don’t go - I love you so’ throughout.
With Alt-J being ridiculously under the radar, from refusing to show their faces in early photos and their website being so arty and conceptual it was hard to navigate around, I didn’t have high expectations about listening to their debut, but I was pleasantly surprised. Each track is a different genre in its own right, from distorted vocals and gritty riffs in ‘Intro’ to ‘Fitzpleasure’ being a mix of reggae, dubstep, folk then suddenly heavy metal-esque guitar riffs. It’s crazy. Unfortunately, the album's high quality drops on the last two tracks. Suddenly the mood goes whiney, melancholy and being able to hear Newman’s sighs between singing makes ‘Bloodflood’ sound creepy and like a panic attack during an acid trip. Despite that, disorganised, inconsistent and scattered, this style of music just shouldn't work. But wow, it really does.
8/10 Freja Hoskins
