These New Puritans

Essex’s own These New Puritans have been producing some of the most excitingly individual music of the last 5 years. Impossible to categorise fully but baring hallmarks of post-punk, drone, classical and electronic music, it was the 2008 debut album ‘Beat Pyramid’ that launched them into international critical acclaim. A deep, philosophical and carefully pieced-together record, full of oblique references and angular rhythms, it was a beguiling and stunning debut out of nowhere.

It was Angular Records that introduced them to a wider world with the ‘Now Pluvial’ EP (2006), and the peculiar sound intrigued the Christian Dior fashion house to commission a sound piece from the band. The result, ‘Navigate, Navigate’ (2007), was a wide-ranging 12 minute opus that drew even more gushing praise for the band.

It was the full length ‘Beat Pyramid’ (2008) that finally realised a complete example of what the band were striving toward. Many reviewers picked up on the circular nature of the record, the way both rhythms and words reappeared and segued together, and tracks like ‘Swords Of Truth’ and ‘C16th’ are so far beyond the obvious touchstones of The Fall and other post-punk artists.

The electronic sounds hinted at on the debut came to the fore on this years follow-up ‘Hidden’. Gently introducing itself with the textured drone of ‘Time Xone’, it was the second track, and first single, ‘We Want War’ that perfectly introduced the improvements and refinements we’d all been waiting for. A curious and uneasy feel pervades the track, with the almost danceable rhythm overtaken by some kind of unnameable dread. Like the album, it’s epic, otherworldly and precise. Reviews were masterful and it’s still up with the album of the year contenders.