Asylum Variations [CD]

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The Wolfgang Press - Asylum Variations [CD] The Wolfgang Press present their ninth studio album, Asylum Variations. The album, the follow up to 2024's acclaimed album, A 2nd Shape -- the band's first in nearly thirty years -- continues the return of one of post-punk's most singular and restlessly inventive groups. With Asylum Variations, The Wolfgang Press continue their tradition of never making the same album twice. Although the sonic DNA of A 2nd Shape is intact, the band ramp up the tension and dread while also creating a coherent and accessible set of songs. Recorded at Metway Studio in Brighton, UK, they utilized the method of recording directly onto ADAT and taking the results into the studio to use as the basis for the record. The resulting album is yet another step forward for a band who's only constant is the fact that every album will sound different to the last. Opener "Speakers Don't Speak" is driven by a Can-like beat, Roxy VCS3-style processed guitars, and gurgling analogue synths, over which singer/bassist Michael Allen's seemingly stream-of-consciousness lyrics evoke unease without specifying its source. Elsewhere on the album, wheezing synths and haunted harmonies underpin "Blood On The Leaves," with Allen's bass melodically meandering before collapsing into a dubby breakdown, while "Sail By" again references the dub influence that marked the band out from their early '80s post-punk peers. With Allen in his best crooner mode, "Bind Us" is ushered in on Andrew Gray's undulating guitar, while his brother Stephen picks out the prettiest of keyboard melodies. Penultimate track "Embrace The Light" is a sparse and downtempo ballad, which allows Allen to show off his yearning vocal to full effect and finale "Man Made Heaven" crawls slowly to the album's end, a nimble bassline darting around dirge-like guitars and a synthetic choir. Allen is joined by his daughters for a coda of "it's a lie, it's a lie," finishing the album in a crescendo of industrial noise that manages to be both bleak yet strangely uplifting. Maintaining such a dichotomy is not an easy thing to do, and it's part of what made The Wolfgang Press so unique first time around. If Asylum Variations is anything to go by, the 21st century iteration of the band is more than capable of channeling this duality, their fractured music making them perfect for the fragmented times we find ourselves in. 01. Speakers Don't Speak 02. Blood On The Leaves 03. Lizard 04. Sail By 05. Bind Us 06. He Who Makes Rivers 07. The Art Of Writing 08. Embrace The Light 09. Man Made Heaven Show more