2001 Silverbullit - Citizen Bird
Have you ever seen a movie that feels like you've seen it before? Like every scene that follows is not only self-evident, but also like the story and the expression are as familiar as the inside of your left pocket (or wherever you keep your hard-earned pennies)? Mountainhead is, on first listen, a Déjà-Vu album. The phenomenon that you've heard the music you're listening to before is mixed with the experience that it resembles far too much an earlier song on the album to be able to be defined as individual. This perception is easily adjusted by checking the matter out and by that moves the album from the Déjà-Vu compartment, via the suspected plagiarism compartment to the DNA resonance compartment. What feels familiar is at least as often an experience that the music works naturally with who you are, as it is a phenomenon that you've experienced before. At least in the case of creative geniuses unconditionally mixing their expressions in a common melting pot.
The quartet from Manchester, who released their seventh album in 2024, may not go from strength to strength, and even if the lowest level is quite high, it is still easy for listeners to almost always stick to a couple or three of their albums. They maintain such a high highest level.
Everything Everything moves according to the chess knight's pattern. Two steps in the same direction followed by a side step. That's how I saw their album releases from a creative chronological perspective until Mountainhead reached my ears, but with this release they now take a new side step right after the latest. Maybe not in such a way that it is an obvious new direction. The arrangement is at least somewhat reminiscent of Get To Heaven from 2015 in that the basic rhythm section gives full space to the melodic part of the compositions. Although Alex Robertshaw's sonically experimental guitar loops are also very attractive this time, it is probably vocalist Jonathan Higgs' virtuoso vocal melodies that once again captivate to the point that each song can be classified as the highlight of the album on every listen. Although the extremely functional accompanying keyboards and programming work mostly as accompaniment and should be classified as part of the rhythm section, they fill the compositions to the brim without the songs risking being perceived as too compact or heavy-handed. Thanks to this, each song is a forward movement even in the few cases where the tempo is not the driving force. This is especially noticeable during the second half of the album where the tempo is kept at a moderate level almost throughout. Mountainhead consists of 14 individual compositions and can be classified as a concept album in terms of both musical composition and lyrics. After a few listens, a phenomenal narrative emerges in which a fictional society is described. Whether it is a utopia, a dystopia or something in between is up to the viewer to decide. I think the author's stance on the matter can be stated to be obvious.