New Rotation — August 21
Six records out this week, each with the verdict attached, plus the one we are still arguing about internally and have therefore not given one.
The one without a verdict is second in the list, and the disagreement about it has been running since Tuesday.
Theo thinks it is the best thing the label has put out. Nadia thinks it is a demo with a budget. Both positions are below and neither of them got to win.
Out this week
| Record | Label | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| **Hollow Parade** — *Fathom Street* | Fathom Street Recordings | The third-best record they have made and the first that sounds like a decision |
| **Osric Vane** — *Halfway Measures* | Notch & Co. | Forty minutes of a band agreeing with itself |
| **The Long Wednesdays** — *Cellar Door* (live) | self-released | A document rather than a record, and a very good document |
| **Marguerite Tide** — *Two Songs* | self-released | Twelve minutes, no idea what it will become, worth your attention now |
| **Perennial Static** — *Field Notes* (EP) | Pale Interval | Offcuts from *Nine Fields*, and it sounds like it |
| **Dray & the Tallows** — *Second Sleep* | Notch & Co. | There is a very good record in here and the band have declined to find it |
| **Ivy Mensah** — *Cold Open* (repress) | Fathom Street Recordings | *No verdict. Two of us disagree and neither will move.* |
Record of the week — Fathom Street
Hollow Parade stopped adding. It is the only thing that changed on the fourth record and it changed everything about it — there is air in this one, and four songs that would have been on any of the previous three are better here because there is less on top of them.
Read the full reviewIt is the third-best record they have made and the first one that sounds like a decision.
One year ago this week we gave Ashfield Sequence by Osric Vane a verdict of "impressive and completely inert". Twelve months on it is the record from that August anyone here still plays, which suggests the verdict was wrong about the second adjective and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Ivy Mensah — Cold Open reviewed
A debut recorded in eleven days in a room with one microphone, and it sounds exactly like that, which is either the point or the problem depending on the track.
Theo Bramhall
Member discussion