The album hits an astonishingly powerful high point on ‘The 21st Century Is Killing Me’. Robb channels a husky Ian Brown meets Shaun Ryder vocal on this psychedelic choir fuelled affair. As the choir loops “Breathe in, breathe out”, the magnitude of the song title builds to the almost unbearable reflection of the last 10 years. Years of austerity, Bullingdon arrogance, climate neglect, shit trains, expensive trains, Trump, Farrage, Tommy Yaxley Lennon, Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism, Corbyn failing to lead, Lammy not leading, Mogg’s dodgy 7 million, and Hartley-Brewer & O'Brien two sides of the same pathetic LBC coin. It all comes crashing down on this hypnotic plea for humanity to pull its finger out!
There are, however, moments of post-punk pop to cut through this tension. ‘A Murder of Crows’ is a furious Happy Mondays meets The Fall punk-funk stomper. ‘Black Is The Colour’ takes the iconic sound of Hooky’s bass to modern-day Fat White Family and The Blinders dystopian landscapes. ‘Mother Ocean / Father Time’ calls upon the unruly energy of The Stooges via Death In Vegas.
Meanwhile ‘What Nature Gives...Nature Takes Away’ harness’ the sexed-up riffs of Elastica, the desolation of Joy Division, and the melodious melancholy of Johnny Marr to deliver glorious pop experimentation.
The mainstream music press, too often says things like “where are all the bands”, “where are the outsiders, the rule-breakers, the risk-takers”. They never went anywhere; this decade has been a great one for music. It’s just been chronically undervalued and underdocumented.
It’s been a decade of psyche influences. Kicked off by the hazy lo-fi Tame Impala and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, it took until 2013 to have its real moment, Primal Scream’s ‘More Light’. This was joined by The Blinders’ ‘Columbia’ last year and now The Membranes have added to it. There is a real sense that they have left every ounce of their soul in the recording studio for this release. The intensity and the struggle is tangible at times and, it should be serially recognised!
