Squid – Bright Green Field
(Warp Records)
Reviewed by Sam Smith.
Brighton post-punk band Squid have been building momentum nicely over the last five years. The five-piece had released three EPs and a stellar run of recent singles had kept people excited for their debut album. That album, Bright Green Field is finally here, and it fits the bill perfectly, helping to continue what is a renaissance in UK post-punk.
Recorded during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic with producer Dan Carey, the man responsible for producing albums by fellow post-punk contemporaries Black Midi and Fontaines D.C., Bright Green Field keeps within the experimental and risk-taking ethos of the post-punk spirit leading to a highly varied album sound-wise.
The sounds on display across the elven tracks range from ringing church bells, tooting bees, a thirty-piece choir, strings and horns. This is purposefully done by the group and as drummer and lead vocalist Ollie Judge says is to help create an imaginary cityscape illustrating the places, events, and architecture that exists within that.
It is Judge’s uniquely raw but instantly recognisable quirky singing style that centres the band’s music in that classic post-punk sound of the late 70s and early 80s. This is clear on tracks such as G.S.K. and Narrator, the latter which channels fellow post-punk group Shame with sprightly shouty vocals and early Talking Heads instrumentation.
The songs on the album are quite long at times, however, this does allow time for improvisation and experimentation. A case in point is Boy Races, which clocks in at over seven minutes and contains multiple tempo changes and stylistic adventures that ensure the listener is kept intrigued. This is not conventional guitar music by any stretch and in this instance dives deep into avant-garde territory.
There is time for more traditional guitar indie shall we say with tracks like Peddling, perhaps offering relief for those not cut out for some of the more complex material and who like traditional song structures and tunes you can tap your feet to.
However, this album is ultimately about taking risks and pushing post-punk to the absolute limit sound wise and in terms of composition. These moments are seen on the likes of the Public Image Limited-esque Peel Street, Global Groove, a horn drenched slow burner set to Radiohead-esue guitar, and Pamphlets, an eight-minute epic that truly captures everything about this album stylistically from the vocals right down to the light and shade displayed in the instrumentation.
All up, Squid has done a terrific job on this album, an album that lines up nicely against their critically acclaimed post-punk contemporaries. It nicely encapsulates the glimpses of talent they showed on their past projects, while shows enough promise for them to build on in the future.
Judge’s vocals shine throughout and his performance is the absolute highlight, while the instrumentation from the five members collectively really make the songs tick. Clearly, they are talented musicians on their respective instruments and the way they construct songs and seem unafraid to experiment with composition is completely down to their musical chops and knowledge.
Guitar music in the UK is proving very interesting at the moment, and bands like Squid are very much of a new energy that has not been seen for over ten years. Long may it continue.
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