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Playing at Coachella last month, Charli XCX brought the curtain down on her lengthy “Brat summer” by screening the names of 26 acts that might succeed her with their own zeitgeisty albums. Among them were These New Puritans.
The Essex duo now step forward to claim this improbable prize with their latest release. It features a boy treble, a romantic duet between two building cranes and much use of church organ and bells in songs that shimmer and pound like a meeting between heaven and earth. Such recondite fare will not fulfil Charli’s prediction: we are not about to have a New Puritanical summer. But this first album in six years marks a welcome return by one of indie music’s most idiosyncratic bands.
Named after a lyric in a song by The Fall, These New Puritans emerged in 2008 with Beat Pyramid, a relatively conventional exercise in post-punk. Subsequent releases widened their scope with unpredictable moves into minimalism, orchestral music and progressive pop. Twin brothers George Barnett and Jack Barnett are the core twosome, joined as co-producer by regular collaborator Graham Sutton of post-rock veterans Bark Psychosis.
Crooked Wing’s title makes poetic reference to the shape of the human ear. Religion and ritual are repeated themes. The boy treble, Alex Miller, tops and tails the album, recorded in an Essex church singing a celestial vocal about being the spirit of a place. Jack Barnett is lead singer on the other tracks. His voice has a very different tone, slightly lugubrious yet also dramatic, a curious mix of post-punk and New Romantic.
Caroline Polachek joins him on “Industrial Love Song” in which the cranes croon to each other like “two pilgrims of the mist”. The bassline has a warm jazzy thrum, reminiscent of Robert Wyatt. In “Bells”, the eponymous instruments follow a fluid set of Steve Reich-style repetitions. “A Season in Hell” switches abruptly to a heavy bassline and George Barnett’s attacking drumming, while the church organ that appears throughout the album gains a gothic intensity. It won’t blare from every car this summer, but this richly configured album rewards attention.
★★★★☆
‘Crooked Wing’ is released by Domino
