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That up there ^ is the artwork for Scottish band North Atlantic Oscillation’s new album. Fog Electric will be released on April 30th, so you’d better prepare yourself for a blast of post-rock-ish goodness, though you should also be aware that the band have this habit of sounding rather diverse, so who’s to say if the sound of Savage With Barometer will have much bearing on how the whole thing is going to sound? More of what that song has to offering wouldn’t be a bad thing at all, though: dreamy arrangements, thudding drums and almost more atmosphere than it is possible to handle. I wasn’t aware a song could continue to build upon itself so many times – fans of glorious crescendos will find much to enjoy in this song, in particular the wall of sound that erupts around three and a half minutes in. This is plenty until the album’s first single proper, Soft Coda, arrives on April 16th, two weeks before the album sees the light of day. Scottish bands seem to have a knack for this kind of thing, and it’s not hard to see why.

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PET - Wear Black

How in the hell are these guys unsigned? That was my initial reaction upon hearing the new single from inventive Scottish group PET (Facebook), which is appropriately titled Wear Black. It’s every bit as brooding and melancholic as a song bearing that name would suggest, beginning with a squall of feedback, before being joined by echoing drums and a slinky bassline. It takes more than a minute and a half for the song to settle into anything that could be called a conventional verse, after being guided there by spine-tingling, howling vocals and an impressive sense of dread, but when it begins, the lyrics featured are immediately arresting; ‘What d’you think is growing inside of me?’

Also appropriate is the dark imagery with which the song is filled, not to mention the unsettling undertones which become more prominent as the song goes on, eventually cutting loose around three minutes in with an eruption of guitar and even more impassioned vocals. The song is a completely different animal to their previous material, and admirably displays a band who continue to grow. I don’t think they’ll be unsigned for that much longer.

Wear Black is now available from Bandcamp

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Sometimes, all you need is a hook. Theme Park should know all about this, because their new single contains an absolute monster of one. The new song, the first to be taken from their debut album, due later this year (yep, you can officially start getting excited now), is called Two Hours, and has that much replay value that you could find yourself listening to it on repeat for that long, without much difficulty. It’s one of the finest indie-pop songs I’ve heard so far this year: the interplay between the bass and drums reminds me a lot of Arcade Fire and similar bands with epic ambitions; the overall feel of the song draws comparisons to New Order as well, but this is a sound the trio are striving to make their own. Two Hours deserves all of the praise it gets, as the band have come on considerably from the release of their debut single in August of last year. It doesn’t rely on anything else other than that amazing hook, opening up and revealing itself over three minutes, with an interesting, and extremely unexpected electronic diversion taken as it draws to its close. It would seem they’re not afraid to take risks either – and that’s just what they need. Their ascent continues unchecked.

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