Equus Asinus Review

Four years on from the last album they returned with two records in the same year, and this is the withdrawn one. The groove that carried everything before it is mostly set aside in favour of folk leaning guitar, soft keys and long passages where the band simply lets a note hang. I Come With Mud sets the tone inside thirty seconds and The Landkeeper is built almost entirely out of the silence between phrases. It is beautifully recorded, warm and close, with a low end that sounds expensive without ever announcing itself.

Where it succeeds is atmosphere: put it on in a quiet room and it does exactly what it sets out to do. Where it struggles is memory. Several of the fourteen tracks pass without a hook, a chorus or a change of any kind, and the vocals are mixed so far back that the words functionally disappear. That is a deliberate choice and it has a cost. Admirers of the band will find this the most rewarding thing they have made, and anyone who came for Tailwhip will wonder where the songs went. Gorgeous, patient, and only half a record on its own.