Clean is a warm acoustic delight, sees known Thought Forms songs stripped back and reconfigured, born anew with fresh titles reflecting this.
The slow creeping weave of “Hiding Beneath” invites us in, its spidering vocal spiral chased in recoiling twang and cello, attentively sweeps you off your feet for the words of “Our Ghosts” to vividly burn, buoyantly pull around that sinewed strum, shuffling percussion and vaporous drone.
I’m liking the subtle colourations, the harmonic chemistry at play, it feels close-knit …welcoming… the stripped-back sensibility drawing focus on the strong songwriting foundation and the musical nest in which it breathes. Thought Forms have always embraced a quiet / loud dynamic, but this softer concentrated approach is proving to be very powerful indeed.Something “I Need”, one of my favourites from their debut album, has plenty of. Deej’s voice is achingly beautiful, amber-fled and sparking autumnal; loving the piano follow-throughs too. There’s a first-shot freshness about it, as if seancing the original demo penned so many years ago.
The loose percussion and sycamore chords of “The Noise” has a strange magic, softly fixated, obsessively splintering. An intrigue that holds you within its slivering skeletals, besmirched in some lovely sonic lunges and a smokey vocal duet. This is bloody lovely and only gets better as the Sonic Youth-like chop of “Wide Eyed” throws in a sprightly card for the dark broody nature of “Into The” to overshadow.A pleasure culminating in the processional “Burn Me”, a ritualistic rusted september of a track. Harmonium hum and reverbed drum skin grazing silky and sullen with the miraged haze of chant, a slow outpouring of muted energy dramatically shifting, roasting on that surfacing melodic. Those extra ethnic strings biting braille-like, laddering to its dirge-like conclusion that gives me a swollen river of spinal shivers — an utterly captivating conclusion to a stunning album.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
