Just what we need. Someone to remind us that this ephemeral state of ecstasy we call summer is, in fact, nothing but a cruel illusion. In truth, we’re all nihilists barely existing within a grim climate of chronic atrophy.
And, conversely, it’s this awareness where Tunbridge Wells’ [a]Unhome[/a] find their artistic muse. You can almost taste the irony.
‘A Short History Of Houses’, their debut album, doesn’t sit easily. Primitive starkness is the order of the day, where clattering off-kilter rhythms and layered guitar phrases do battle with acoustic Slint-isms; while Alex Tucker‘s goth-tinged holler only compounds the fear-exploring post-rock territory that Joy Division may have strayed into had Ian Curtis not popped out.
The taut, Fugazi-ite strains of ‘Cartographer’ reveal a more accessible, alt-pop nature, but it’s the morbidly affecting tones of ‘Cotton Duck’ or ‘Crickets And Car Lots’ that give [a]Unhome[/a] a required uniqueness: the Swans with less histrionics and no God fixation, possibly. Even the crude sleeve concept – a series of moody, silk-screen images on dark thin card – leave you with a teasing sense of discomfiture.
The sound of a thousand winters does have its benefits, then.