DELIVERY

Force Majeure - rarely does a title so aptly describe the contents - opens with the controlled explosion of recent single Digging The Hole. The track is three and a half minutes of precise forward motion that's heavy enough to do serious damage, brilliantly breaking down into a percussive middle eight before one final burst of fireworks that feels powerful enough that it could propel the listener through a brick wall.

Follow up single Operating At A Loss starts with a rumble of drums and predatory bass before it explodes out of the speakers with the kind of punk rock new wave kick that feels like it might be preparing to propel the listener through a brick wall (extra points earned for managing to both nod to Magazine’s Shot By Both Sides and for an extensive rant about coffee in the second verse). At the points where the foot is taken off the gas, the band enter post punk territory on The New Alphabet (think Television shooting empty VB tins off the back porch) and the wonderfully Wire-ish What Else. Across the whole record four voices sing, walls of guitars bite and scratch, the rhythm section locks behind them in perfect time and the listener grabs on for dear life and just tries to keep hold.