Album Review Bull - Discover Effortless Living

Recorded across two years with Pavement sound engineer Remko Shouten in his Amsterdam studio, the debut full-length offering from York quartet Bull is a sugary rush of guitar-driven slacker pop that skips joyfully through a nostalgic, coming-of-age haze of adolescent tribulations: infatuation, loneliness and self-loathing, tempered by the odd curry and cheese toastie. Across its thirteen tracks, ‘Discover Effortless Living’ rarely strays from the formula blueprinted by debut single ‘Green’, written by founding members Tom Beer and Dan Lucas as teenagers nearly a decade ago. Like much of the record, ‘Green’ is infectiously melodic, doused in halcyon optimism, and indebted in no small part to their jingle-jangle ‘90s alt-rock heroes.

If ‘Discover…’ occasions threatens to become monotonous in its unrelentingly cushy positivity however, Bull deliver exhilarating moments of gusty musical intention . The rancorous ‘Eddie’s Cap’ exhibits Bull’s darker, heavier side - recalling Stephen Malkmus at his snarling best – while ‘Serious Baby’ catapults the listener, via psychedelic meanderings into a sky-shattering, organ-drenched indie rapture. It’s moments like these which mark Bull out as a guitar-wielding force to be reckoned with.