Gold Key

Panic Machine VENN

Intricate alt.rock perfection from Hertfordshire underground supergroup.

If it’s instant gratification you’re looking for, move along, because Panic Machine is a complicated beast. Featuring members of Gallows and SikTh, Watford’s Gold Key are a band who’ve learned their craft, and their second album offers a deeply immersive experience that reveals more with each listen.

Dense and progressive yet stuffed with melodies, dark and questioning but illuminated with rays of light, and seemingly beamed from the outer edges of the galaxy on a wave of deafening fuzz, it’s as beautiful as it is unsettling, with shades of everyone from Mogwai, Aereogramme, Isis and Baroness to Radiohead’s heaviest side, without ever aping any of them. Mechanical World in particular, with its black-hole grunge chorus and despairing, questioning vocals from frontman Steve Sears, is a timeless slab of alternative rock perfection, while Enceladus glories in a delicate scifi chorus that lingers for days.

A work of art, it may take the world a while to catch up with Panic Machine, but it has every hallmark of a modern classic. ■■■■■■■■■■