In a world where gatekeepers of taste and style seem hell-bent on shoehorning music into this fad or that fashion, labelling it a certain scene or genre, I prefer the world that Eleven 76 draws us into, one where we journalists are forced to make up genres and styles just to start to make sense of their music.
After all, how can an album like A Day of Unrest be summed up in one word or phrase when, – just off the top of my head it seems to take in American dreamtimes and ambient euro-groove, cinematic soundscapes perhaps inspired by the soft and often bleak coastlands of their East of England home; it blends mythology and 70s cop show them tunes and sees them writing the soundtracks to art house films yet to be made. I’d like to see one of the so-called influencers come up with a name for that. Even if they could, they’d be wrong.
After all, music should be more than a label; it should be an experience, a journey not a destination and A Day of Unrest is indeed one hell of a journey.
If ‘Hall Of Dead Roses’ sounds like the theme to a zombie-killing cowboy wandering through the apocalyptic badlands of Nu-Nebraska from a film recently unearthed from a 50s French media archive, ‘Denzel’s Pick Up-Truck’ is rock-funk of the highest and oddest order. (Odd is always a positive word in my world.)
The title track is a blast of dystopian pop made as music is reinvented after the third world war, sonically searing and intense, Hammond organs swirling like the acid rains that lash the stage as the crowd shouts for more and the band go into the encore; ‘The Maniacal Twin’ is the incidental music to a black-and-white Italian detective show, ‘Covert Signal’ is tense, blending brooding groove with drifting cosmic noise, and ‘Incriminating Whisper’ is what happens if you tried to turn an H.P. Lovecraft book into a musical!
There is no point in me trying to describe the music; I couldn’t do it justice, so I’ve used a strange juxtaposition of ideas to hopefully set the scene and build intrigue and anticipation. But that said, anyone who considers themselves fans of discerning and certainly different music are already three albums late to the dance. So get on board, get stuck in, and start raiding the band’s back catalogue… who knows where it might take you.
Until time travel and dimension manipulation become a reality, albums like A Day of Unrest and bands such as Eleven 76 are the next best thing, not so much the sound score to Doctor Who, but certainly the music for Doctor Where and When and How and Why?
