PURITY RING
WOMB
4AD
One’s reverence for Canada’s Purity Ring is likely to depend a great deal on one’s tolerance for Megan James’ voice. Cutesy to the point of callow, and frequently Autotuned to within an inch of its life, it sounds at times – like Grimes on her recent album, and countless others nowadays – as though it were a bot programmed to deliver lines for a children’s cartoon’s most adorably kooky character. This, though, is apparently ‘future pop’, and it suggests that this future will be dominated by indistinguishable holograms, not to mention a dearth of capital letters. So if that’s your thing, you’ll love vehemence, where James sounds like a malfunctioning doll against a backdrop of dry percussion and shadowy synths, and rubyinsides, through whose backwards beats and rumbling bass she slips and slides like a slippery snake in a manga movie. This lack of a human touch is emphasised by Corin Roddick’s backing, which appears to fetishise fastidious electronic soundscapes as distinctive as an Ikea cabinet coated in Vantablack. Consequently, tracks like pink lightning, with its glittery electronic flourishes, and silkspun, which sounds like it was recorded in space, are admirably produced, but still feel little more than blandly functional.