THE BLINDERS have released their latest long player Beholder, a beautifully crafted body of work, full of emotional depth, complex melodies, engaging lyricism and a rhythm section without current comparison which will surely propel them from darlings of the underground alternative scene to the mainstream. Hold on, just reading a press release...Funding of their European tour has fallen through and they're having a 'break'. Ok, I'll start again.

The Blinders have released an album worthy of a Mercury prize but it's been turned into a requiem opus by industry buffoons and moneymen who care not for art, but only for profit. Seriously, there's not a foot out of place in this whole album. From the swirling, building mania of ‘Ceremony’ to the affirmative but still plaintive strains of ‘All I Need’, it's a classic. So many highlights, and it's often in the details. For example on the second song, ‘Brakelights’, the imminently singable chorus is the lasting memory and what you'll be singing in your car, but it's the fantastic machine gun burst of bass notes straight from the JJ Burnell playbook which elevate it to something greater. 

Then, twenty years after Interpol realised their potential with their breakthrough album Antics, you have 'Any Hand but Hers' and' 'While I'm Still Young'  songs which could hold their own on that same classic album.

A change of pace for 'Always', a song built around a baseline which gives off Pixies vibes, a track which reminds me of West country band Black Foxxes (new album out later this year). As we reach track number six and you're settling in to the album, we're treated to an absolutely classic hat trick of tunes. ‘Iggy got Camaro’, is straight up Stranglers vaudevillian carnival pomp and catchy as fuck. On first listen, ‘Waterfalls of Venice’ was the track which gave me goosebumps, if ever there was a track which would start a riot, it's this one. Beautifully timed, the track takes you on a journey through a murderous nightmare scenario and let's you feel the panic. It contains some of the most thunderous drumming I have ever experienced, Thor himself would be proud.

After the shell-shocking visit to Italy, comes a delightfully dark love song, ‘Nocturnal Skies’, to refresh the palate and as a trio I don't know if there has been a better middle third of and album in many years. Finishing with ‘Swallow Static’ and ‘I'm all I Need’, the balance and pace of the album as a whole is superbly judged. Some LPs have a few great tracks but leave you wanting more, with Beholder you feel you've been presented with something special, something to cherish, something to start back at track 1 and listen all over again, and I have, many times.

After all, it might be their last.

Review by Dickie Dunn