Belmont
Liminal
First things first—props to Belmont for continuing to move. Had they carried on with the own-brand pop-punk of their debut—released in 2018, so practically asking to die on the vine—they’d be more or less irrelevant by now. Instead, they’ve grown and reshaped, a bit more modern and cutting-edge now with genre-blending sensibilities that don’t impede on a strong core. It’s not always paid off (lest we forget the furious cringe of Country Girl), but they’ve got something going on, at least. Liminal, then, is about on the expected level of refinement and quality. It certainly feels like a big swing incoming, from the perspective of a band who’ve spent the last decade without one.
That being said, it’s not amazing or anything. Those heights seem a bit far out of Belmont’s reach, when they’re basically locked into a what-if of ‘easycore but new’ that simply doesn’t allow for it. It’s a fine little thought experiment they’ve got going, though, working via Waterparks when they didn’t make TikTok songs, or if early Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! wasn’t unlistenable garbage. The pop-punk at the base is the chunkier, bulkier variety, sprinkled with electronics and trap beats, more nimble guitars or a bolt-from-the-blue metalcore growl. It’s pretty well done, if a little predicatable with the specifics. When Taz Johnson with his mid-2010s-ass voice drones about “demons in [his] head” on the title track, you can’t say it isn’t a bit expected.
But that’s pop-punk for ya; it is what it is. Besides, Belmont come equipped with a bit more than your standard bush-leaguers, so even the more typical cuts like Moxie or Counterfeit sound contemporary. The Waterparks likenesses return for the mile-a-minute yammering of the title track and All Bite, which fits the directness that Belmont have going for them. It’s not sensory overload as much as a tight cache of ideas, skirted through with some good dexterity and timing. The fact that Two’s A Party drops in a sample of Mr. Krabs and actually has it land well is kind of mindblowing. Mostly, though, there’s just a good feel to Liminal, as if the balance between pop-punk traditionalism and the white whale of reinvention has found a happy medium.
It’s pretty fun overall, if you go in not expect a true mould-breaker. Evidence that Belmont want to be that isn’t unfounded, but unlike others who’ll try, their inability to reach that fully hasn’t kneecapped their prospects entirely. There’s still enough to like as a punchy, densely-assembled album on its own merits. But moreover, Liminal represents a good step on a steady climb that Belmont have undertaken, where growth is continuous rather than some untenable spike before a calamitous fall. Perhaps that’s a sign that there’s longevity to be found here, should they keep this upward trend going. Let’s hope so.
For fans of: Waterparks, Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!, Capstan
‘Liminal’ by Belmont is released on 12th April on Pure Noise Records.
Aerial Salad
R.O.I
Yeah, the band name’s bad, but presentability doesn’t necessarily have to factor in urbanised post-punk striding out of modern austerity, does it? It’s actually quite the departure from their 2020 album Dirt Mall, a more rough-and-tumble punk affair that was still decent, even if it could get lost among the street-level rabble. A shift to post-punk of all things mightn’t earmark any solutions on its face, but you’d be surprised what Aerial Salad can pull off.
Maybe it’s the Britpop influence of their native Manchester that’s been sewn in, or to speak more generally, an understanding that post-punk doesn’t have to be as confined as others have made it. At least, that’s the impression that R.O.I gives off. The danger of sinking or drifting off is significantly mitigated when the work is put in to keep moving, hitting its wall towards the end but still beating out plenty of others in the field. The high points do cover a lot of distance themselves anyway, like with the taut, lithe shapes of The Same 24 Hours (As Beyoncé) and Tied To Pieces Of Paper, or the quasi-hardcore thunderclap of MDRN LVN.
All the while, the overcast production and grimy textures show off the post-punk standard for expected hard edges. Aerial Salad have actually jumped into the sound rather cleanly; there’s no real amendment that needs to be made in style, nor in the presence of Jamie Munro as a frontman. He’s loose and sneering and snotty as they often are, but more bluntly riled than sardonic in the clearest carryover from punk. It’s a nice boost for R.O.I, honestly, and another dimension that’s handy to have. For as crucial as it is to hit out at society’s ills and subjugating forces, it’s nice to have it done in a way that’s not a perfunctory retread of post-punk’s usual suspects.
Perhaps that sounds as though Aerial Salad sit on a rather skewed metric, but this is good. Honest. Not quite a whole breath of fresh air as a welcome zhuzh-up, R.O.I can stand on its own just fine, in a way a lot of the post-punk set can’t. Aerial Salad feel like their own entity rather than one that metastasised into existence, while still having the necessary tools to stand their ground in the wider scene. Hell, maybe even rise above a lot of them, by virtue of actually having a personality to themselves. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
For fans of: Fontaines D.C., Sports Team, Wonk Unit
‘R.O.I’ by Aerial Salad is released on 12th April on Venn Records.
Mothman, The Man
Where’s Your Head?
Apropos for a band with that name inspired by cryptids and strange creatures, there’s a battered, incorporeal quality to Mothman, The Man’s music, to where you can’t quite tell what it is sometimes. Previous work settled on the uncanniness of its shoestring stoner-rock as its defining trait, which Where’s Your Head? has seen fit to blur even further. Now, there’s added garage-rock, ‘60s psych and prog, Krautrock and even doom, as if to obfuscate the notion of clarity even further. Kinda fitting for this band to be the musical equivalent of some grainy, ill-defined photo of god-knows-what from god-knows-where.
What’s impressive is, although the tendency to get lost in their own miasma does occur, Mothman, The Man ensure those moments are outliers. It’s really only the tarry shoegaze of Not Owned that isn’t shaped by some rock-solid component or notable quirk. Maybe that latter claim seems a little out-there when remaining stalwart in dry textures and Connor Childs’ stentorian drone, but you’d be surprised. With its dusty clop and spoken yarn of outlaws and gunslingers, Cult Of Bone, Pt. 2 – The Odyssey Of Clive Gatorkill might as well be some plainsman’s tall tale mid-transmogrification in hardened garage-rock.
In the way that this sort of music can often feel rigid and hemmed-in by design, Mothman, The Man seek to dispute that at every turn. The first big instance is on Gigantopithecus with its guitar chugs and key squeaks imported from prog’s ancient past, as well as a seedy, swirling hook that becomes a real unwitting earworm. Elsewhere, there’s the enigmatic slither and writhe of Aural Lyceum and seven-minute doom closer Mother Leeds’ 13th Child, Pts. 1 & 2, where a creaking darkness pressed to the edge of the mix and a hollered hook of “I saw the Jersey devil” play towards an analog horror inscrutability. There’s seldom a predictable decision made on Where’s Your Head? and it’s obviously all the better for it. For a style that can often sound old or tired or tediously inflexible, to have Mothman, The Man give it a jolt to the spine almost constantly works wonders.
What’s more, you get the sense that Mothman, The Man are investigating their own sound alongside the listener. A throwback, this is most definitely not; the pieces might read that way, but the final result is parsing through its own mystique and obscurity in real time. Just like the monsters and folktales hiding in its peripherals, Where’s Your Head?’s fascination is in the unknown required to pore over for the final reward. If you found the real Mothman, you wouldn’t get something this good, that’s for sure.
For fans of: The Wytches, Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees
‘Where’s Your Head?’ by Mothman, The Man is released on 19th April on Krautpop Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
