The British band The Pheromoans seem determined on making it darn near impossible for a reviewer to get an easy handle on their music. The group's newest record, County Lines, is out now via ALTER, and it's the sort of release that is alternately bracing and thrilling. For every tune here that's nearly accessible, there's likely another that's eerie and unsettling.
"The Lister" and "The Sixth Bell" recall early Pulp and Eighties-era The Fall, respectively, even as "Troll Attack" ventures into the sort of territory once occupied by Frank Tovey and Fad Gadget. Elsewhere, "Roman Uncle" mixes skewed melodic-lines, keyboard whirring, and jazzy drumming to conjure up something that should make an attentive listener recall both Devo and Crime and the City Solution. The stuff here on County Lines is not exactly easy to categorize so a reviewer may make some leaps like that for odd points of comparison. And even though "Ultra Skies" briefly skirts towards something more mainstream, the majority of the tunes here are post-punk of the sort that owes as much to Cabaret Voltaire as it does to Pere Ubu. Still, lots of what's here sounds, at times, like those recently-reissued This Kind of Punishment albums. The Pheromoans are taking a lot of chances here, and the music is both risky and not entirely too abstract.
County Lines is out now via ALTER, or the link below.
[Photo: ALTER / The Pheromoans]