Alternative tentacles
Amphibious millennials’ thrilling post-punk/Krautrock collision. By Andrew Perry.
Squid ★★★★
Bright Green Field WARP. CD/DL/LP
ON ONE OF Brexit’s many unfulfilled D-days early last year, Squid’s singing drummer Ollie Judge travelled by Megabus from London to his native Bristol. Breaking off from reading JG Ballard’s Concrete Island on the A4 flyover at Brentford, the yelpy mid-twentysomething soon beheld the gleamingly futuristic HQ of pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline and
was gripped by a feeling of existential dread, as if he’d awoken in a 2020 movie update of his dystopian reading matter.
As well as informing Judge’s lyrics for GSK, the first full track on Squid’s insatiably questing debut album, he and his compadres decided to make contemporary Britain’s mood of Ballardian discomfort into Bright
Green Field’s loosely themed purpose.
The five-man combo, who met at uni in Brighton, have thus far presented as dextrous youngsters referencing the myriad influences that Spotify has afforded them. Their smattering of EPs, singles and download oneoffs confused as much as excited, packing experimental left-turns (see Town Centre EP opener, Savage) as often as exercises in thunderous motorik, like 2019’s onlineonly Houseplants.
To borrow a phrase, Squid contain
multitudes, and the full context of this 55-minute, written-in-one-go long-player defines them best (for now), allowing scope to explore hefty trance-outs, tempohopping complexity and skronky weirdness en route to nailing their broad musical vision – very 2003-4 in its postpunk jitteriness, but also achingly ‘now’, especially when topped off with Laurie Nankivell’s trumpet.
For them, as for peers Black Country, New Road, each track is a shapeshifting narrative. Here, Narrator almost anthemises that practice, going through Slint-esque twists and rhythmic evolutions, before hitting a cacophonous crescendo, then receding into industrial feedback. 2010, conversely, pinballs between Beefheartian off-centre arpeggios and Dinosaur Jr. thrash, while Boy Racers startlingly resolves into two minutes of blaring siren, right off 1973’s The Faust Tapes.
Fortunately, when not flipping between jarring juxtapositions, Squid excel at busting out an unfettered groove: Pamphlets concludes the album with eight minutes of Can-ish skyward propulsion – the delirious release which justifies all the foregoing tension.
Producer Dan Carey (BC,NR; Black Midi; Toy) brings cohesion to the multiplicity, while Judge, hitherto an impenetrable vocal presence, sheds light on his oblique yet acutely targeted writing, explaining how Documentary Filmmaker concerns anorexia among his friends. Elsewhere, beefs include London’s rental housing crisis (2010) and right-wing propaganda (Pamphlets).
In a time of crippling uncertainty, there’s reassurance to be gleaned from that spirit of examination, and from the accompanying music’s audacity. Squid are considering giving away promotional vitamins with Bright Green Field. Their ambitious record is, in itself, an absolute tonic.