The Pheromoans give a well studied sigh at life with the deadpan DIY expression of southern English ennui, I’m On Nights for Luke Younger’s Alter label.
“A largely electronic affair, this new ten-track LP - recorded in Manor House, north east London - refracts vocalist Russell Walker’s stony poeticisms through a lens of analogue synths, while etching drum machine clicks and spaced out keyboard ditties into the bigger picture. Guitars and bass still make an appearance – helmed by Christian Butler, Alex Garran and James Tranmer – but they’ve mostly been eclipsed by the scrappy, artificial beats which now underline Walker's diary-like, ennui-soaked rhymes.
Album opener ‘Wizard’ with its blocky, Bizarre Love Triangle-esque intro and unnerving pins and needles crackle - jolts you awake with charges of experimental noise. Then there’s the plaintive synth pads on the LP’s eponymous, stripped back tear-jerker and the acid squelch of ‘Depressed Wobble’. Because, with ‘I’m On Nights’, musical touchstones take on a myriad cult guises, from the downbeat minimal wave of Solid Space or Absolute Body Control, to a hypothetical vision of Dan Treacy crooning caustically over ‘Mari’ by Martin Rev. That’s not forgetting, of course, the outlier crop of new wave-y bands which this time around sees the likes of Datblygu and Young Marble Giants step up to the plate. And, as always, there’s the requisite nod to all things DIY and Messethetics.”
