Album review: Field Music - Plumb

Peter and David Brewis’ fourth missive is a cocktail of complexity, no doubt. But is the mix right?

Peter and David Brewis’ fourth missive is a cocktail of complexity, no doubt.

This kooky 15-track beast is bursting at the seams with time signatures, riffs, asides, motifs, instrumental noodling, harmonies and - underpinning it all - ideas. Great in theory, but the way they all jostle for your attention and jolt the songs about can be disorientating.

At it’s brightest the Sunderland band filter a late-era Beatles psychedelia through their fragmented instrument-heavy indie, as on Start The Day Right. A surprisingly funky bassline directs A New Town to the dancefloor, too.

But Plumb would likely benefit from some judicious editing to make a more coherent set, without it losing its higgledy-piggledy charm.

It’s not until almost the end, when Just Like Everyone Else strides onto the speakers with its slow, liquid guitar strum and pulsing bass undercurrent, that it feels like they’ve exhausted the urge to cram a school music department’s assets into each song.

Their single (I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing is a fulsome, jerky highlight that bizarrely signs off the record, but at least leaves the brothers - and the listener - on a clear-headed note.

3 stars