Usually, people are drawn to records by bands whose sound has already eased its way into their comfort zones. But I remember getting to the end of reviewing last year’s Your Best Nightmare album, the wonderfully and challengingly titled A Simple Solution For Toxic Mascalinity and realizing that things aren’t as easy as that with this band. The songs on that album wandered wide and wilfully all over the musical landscape. I concluded that the common thread that connected all the tracks was not sound but attitude. And despite that, or more likely because of it, here I am back for more.
“St Agnes” comes from a similar creative mindset as before. Even if you could find a signature sound in the band’s back catalog, this is not that representative…but then again, what is? What “St Agnes” is, is a song that comes from a metal-infused place that, when you pick it apart, is made up of anything but the usual metal realms musical instruments of war.
Indie-rock guitars are warped, weird, and woven through; drums are punky and tribal; strange post-punk sonics burst all over the place; and basslines brood and bombard like a goth band in overdrive, and the whole thing has more than a touch of Baroque ‘n’ roll about it. There is even some ukulele if you dig deep enough under the effects pedals. And then you have the lyrics, which eshew the usual hard rock love of self-aggrandizement and sci-fi twaddle, fantasy quests, and demonic lore and instead take on a quasi-religious sweary sentiment and which are delivered with all the angst and anxiety and attitude and aggression of a riot grrl band headlining the last festival of the summer.
As I said, Your Best Nightmare is not a band you can judge based on what they have done before, and you can’t really cast an opinion on what they might do next based on this or any single. But isn’t that how it should be? Just drop the virtual needle, open your mind, and see what happens. Life is unpredictable at the best of times; shouldn’t music be the same?
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