Fuzzy Lights

★★★★ Burials MEADOWS. CD/DL/LP

Cambridge Krautfolk collective’s first album in eight years.

After 2013’s Rule Of Twelfths and a stint backing Damo Suzuki, Fuzzy Lights seemed to have abandoned their quest to merge hardcore Can-style gallops with surprisingly delicate folk. In fact, the quintet led by married couple Rachel and Xavier Watkins were scheming an almighty leap forwards. When the bleak, 10 minutes of Songbird rattles into a fierce, climactic concluding maelstrom and segues into the gentle beauty of The Graveyard Song (concerning the passing of time from a yew tree’s point of view), it’s the ultimate Fuzzy Lights moment. There’s real darkness here: Under The Waves and Sirens (“Still I see them buried/Faces pale beneath the ground”) are as death-fixated as Ian Curtis, while The Maiden’s Call deals with Rachel’s miscarriage. In the end, the musical battle between the fuzzy and the light makes Fuzzy Lights special.