Monday 16 April 2018

New Music Monday: Normandie - Inguz (Gold Edition)

Hello guys! Thanks so much for getting me up to 2000 reads in just 8 days! Incredibly psyched that you’re picking up what I’m putting down. Gonna try to release my first long form article before I get to 2500 reads, so keep an eye out if you dig early 2000s post-hardcore, its gonna be a treat! In the meantime I’m gonna try and get a new music review in every Monday. Trying not to keep to any particular output schedule apart from this on a Monday. If you’ve got a record you want me to review get me a link or PM me for my address if you’re old school and want to give me a physical copy. Starting off with my big tip for 2018, the Gold Edition of Inguz by Normandie that came out last Friday. Hope you enjoy.

Normandie are a young, fresh and exciting post rock band from Sweden, they have been picking up a lot of good press with their early output and the regular version of Inguz landed in 2017 to a largely positive critical response. They have recently signed to the popular Easy Life records and released a Gold Edition of the record with some extra tracks and some brilliant live renditions of the best tracks from the album.

I’m going to start at the end of the record, which is a very odd place to start. In my opinion the track ‘Ghost’ is their best output on the record. With a sound akin to 30STM and the cleanest vocal I’ve heard on the album, the track is a sleeper hit which when heard for the first time makes and incredible impression. Vocalist Philip has a remarkable set of pipes and a range that majority of the pop acts in the charts would be envious of. A slow verse of Philip’s angelic vocals builds into a searing chorus with incredible singalong potential. Jesper’s pounding drum beat carries the song, almost tribal sounding at times. The Gold Edition includes a live cut of the song which shows off the band’s ability as it barely sounds different to the studio version. A great jumping off point into the band for the first time.

The rest of the record is varied, well produced and has some really catchy tracks. Some songs share a sound with some of the later Linkin Park output with Philip really able to turn it up in some of the heavier parts. There are some synth parts that chop up the vocals a bit that in my opinion are unneccessary but it does help set them apart from many of their contempories. I especially enjoyed ‘Loophole’ an anthemic ode to a poor lifestyle which has an incredible blastbeat middle part and a really addictive chorus. The acoustic version of ‘Collide’ starts with a lovely piano part that wouldn’t be out of place on a Script album, Philip’s voice taking pride of place on a heavily stripped back version of one of the best songs on the record.

The band enjoy a unique position in a swamped post rock genre as they have a wide array of styles at their disposal which means that the record never sounds stale and is an easy listen from start to finish. This band are going to be absolutely huge so get in early and get on the hype train. Congratulations to Jamie and the team for getting these guys on the Easy Life roster, I think all parties will enjoy some success together over the coming months.

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