Beak> ★★★★
INVADA. CD/DL/LP
Krautrock-inspired Bristol trio’s fourth outing. Follow-up, visibly, to 2018’s >>>
Nick Spanos
Not for the first time (they took similar measures circa 2012’s >>), Beak> required a period sequestered alone, on this occasion in a house near Portmeirion, to ‘de-normalise’ themselves from the tendencies which infected their music while touring. Perhaps gratuitous crowd-pleasing crept in on-stage; maybe parts of >>> erred towards conventional indie rock. Here, Geoff Barrow (drums, also in Portishead), Billy Fuller (bass, Robert Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters), and Will Young (guitar/synths, Modern Nature) get back to their whacked-out, unguessable best, spiriting up nine slices of off-centre Can-ish groove (The Seal, Ah Yeh), skewed West Coast harmony (Hungry Are We) and early-Factory alt-disco experimentalism (Secrets). Fabulous mid-track left-turns abound: at 4:19, Denim’s woozy weave of mellotron and electric picking suddenly admits amp-blazing metal riffage for the closing minute, while a drum roll at 2:43 chicanes hitherto drifty Bloody Miles into On The Corner-style electro-funk. Ever unpredictable and inspired, >>>> is anything but run-of-the-mill.Not for the first time (they took similar measures circa 2012’s