Staff Reviews

Wintersleep - New Inheritors

Review by Alexander Tudor

With Tony Doogan producing, Wintersleep have added strings and brass, and for tension-building effect, gone back to the scratchiest riffs to start songs rather than diving straight in, as before.»

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wintersleep return with their most powerful and detailed record to date. lesser bands would have followed up their success with a simple re-write.. if it ain't broke...6instead, wintersleep have chosen to make some of the most expansive, dynamic, dark and courageous rock music you'll hear this year. while their lyrics to date have focused on the personal, the songs on new inheritors tend towards a bigger worldview. the narrator is a voyeur, commenting on situations rather than being in the situation itself. without a doubt, a much more brooding, shadowy record, at times the lyrics verge on the intentionally indecipherable - check the pre-chorus to 'blood collection' - suggesting menacing, indefinable figures. recorded in montreal and mixed in glasgow with tony doogan (mogwai, malcolm middleton, dirty pretty things, teenage fanclub, the delgados), wintersleep's sound is more expansive, less distorted and more cerebral. for the first time, the band opted to work with both a brass and string arranger on some songs, but rather than overpower with swathes of violins and trumpets, they form a core part of each track rather than an awkward add-on.
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