The music of Glasgow-based band Nightshift owes much to that of the glorious first wave in post-punk in the United Kingdom. I'm talking about that window between punk of the late Seventies, and synth-pop of a half-decade later. Conjuring up vibes of the early Eighties, the guitar-crafted angles of Homosapien, the new one from this band on Trouble in Mind Records, are very pleasing indeed.
Opener "Crystal Ball" draws upon influences as disparate as The Fall and Gang of Four, though the charms here remain unique, while the brutalist guitar of "Together We Roll" juts up smartly against a buoyant chorus. Nightshift neatly blend about a dozen clear influences into something that seems forward-thinking. The refrain "I'm hidden in the tracks of the bourgeoisie" gives the twang-y "SUV" a bit of spry wit that is indicative of the light touch Nightshift take here. This is complicated music, of course, but the band has a deft approach that sees their past-beholden churn delivered with the utmost sense of accessibility.
Nightshift place themselves in line here with some of the best bands to come out of Scotland. It's not a stretch to say that I can hear faint echoes of early work from The Delgados here in Homosapien, and even a little of the noisy attack of Fire Engines and the class-conscious smarts of Josef K, respectively, too. This is a bracing bit of work, and Nightshift continue to be one of those bands too good to be flying under the radar for too much longer.
Homosapien by Nightshift is out now via Trouble in Mind Records.
[Photo: Brian Carroll]