Errors

‘Lease of Life’ is Errors’ fourth album in a career that has seen an assured and marked development in sound from their claustrophobic guitar and beats beginnings on EP ‘How Clean Is Your Acid House’ (2006) through to the expansive layered vocals of recent mini-album ‘New Relics’ (2012).

The record begins with the shimmering arpeggios of ‘Colossal Estates’ before the title track sees a distant vocal alight on a bass heavy juggernaut. ‘Slow Rotor’ follows and places singer Cecilia Stamp’s hypnotic vocal up front and centre in a departure from the band’s previous work. Released as a single, the song was accompanied by a surreal, technicolor video from artist Rachel Maclean that develops the opening line, ‘Find out what happens when you don’t look up’, to an appropriately apocalyptic conclusion.

‘New Winged Fire’ and ‘Genuflection’ are off-kilter floor fillers, the slight ‘Early Nights’ recalls Boards of Canada while ‘Dull Care’ and ‘Putman Caraibe’ expand on the prominent vocals of ‘Slow Rotor’ to great effect.

The finale to ‘Lease of Life’ is the fifteen minute epic ‘Through the Knowledge of Those Who Observe Us’, the first song on the album to be completed and heavily inspired by the remote Isle of Jura where the band began writing and recording. Featuring a choir and a saxophone, it slowly builds up to a brilliantly strange crescendo that’s a fitting end to an LP that once again marks a confident and significant progression for the Glasgow trio.

Words by David P Scott