&U&I are a band with something to prove. After the sudden and catastrophic implosion of previous project Blakfish – a band who’s incessant touring and irrepressible charisma had them crowned standard-bearers for a new generation of British post-hardcore bands – two new acts were born. Sam Manville formed Hymns, who you’ll no doubt read about elsewhere in this issue, and the remaining three members, Thom Peckett, Richard Lee and Rob Wisely, dusted themselves off and began &U&I. After a year of touring to support their debut EP ‘Kill The Man That Shot The Man’, they’ve finally unleashed their debut full length ‘Light Bearer’ through their own label ‘ondryland’.
Throwing aside the jovial one-liners and major-key harmonies of their previous project, ‘Light Bearer’ is all about shade and dissonance. The riffs are thirty foot tall and the choruses are demolishing. Bass and drums are pushed to the front at every turn – pummeling the songs up to speed and pulling them to a halt just as quickly. Thom’s vocals are urgent and uncompromising and, having been left to his own devices, he’s completely stepped up to the plate. There’s a sense that these songs come from having been through the wringer; coming out the other side inspired, driven and ready to take on the world.
Highlights include ‘To The Water Now Is The Hour,’ which comes close to summing the band up in one track, ‘La Mere Vipere’ which is Ridiculous-Time-Signature Central and ‘Baskerville The Atheist’ which, after a slow start, grows to a monumental climax. It’s away from the ‘proper’ tracks that the really interesting stuff is happening. Opener ‘D Pablo I’, intermission ’Super Five’ and closing track ‘Above The Abyss’ all step away from the post-hardcore template, something that should have been expected from a band who’s name is cribbed from Prog-Rock legends Yes. Economical experimentation with textures, loops and samples throughout makes for a genuinely involving record from start to finish.
Every so often an album comes along that you want to listen to it unbearably loud – verging on physically damaging in fact. This is one of those records. Listen at your peril.
John has been promoting shows and club nights in Leicester for almost a decade. He currently runs the venue at Firebug, plays guitar in Maybeshewill, Bass in Her Name Is Calla, heads up the Robot Needs Home Collective and co-founded the Leicester Music Collective. Sometimes he claims to know what he’s talking about, but thankfully not very often.
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