PVA - No More Like This

As is almost obligatory for a once-buzzy newcomer’s second record, ‘No More Like This’, PVA’s follow-up to their much-hyped 2022 debut ‘Blush’, sees them offering a metaphorical stretching of musical legs. Theirs results in an ambitious and sonically rich collection, albeit one wherein looking to avoid reductive pigeon-holing as the far electronic side of South London’s post-punk overspill also results in a record that’s occasionally begging to choose if not a lane, then at least a motorway (or, if one wished to over-egg an already desperate metaphor, an Autobahn…).

Here, in place of dancefloor euphoria, early-morning afters or even expansive ‘90s comedown sounds is the night bus: intimate, headphone moments with synths hinting at just enough menace. If that descriptor brings The xx to mind, it’s Ella Harris’ cut-glass vocal delivery that cements a lazy and yet evocative comparison. ‘Enough’ channels a similarly understated hypnotism, weaving in self-consciously lo-fi sounds with its dancier loops to land somewhere between there and Tune-Yards, while ‘8’ is whisper-like in its intimacy. There’s ‘Anger Song’ too, where hints of Portishead can be heard in its trippy subtleties.

It’s almost a Catch-22 situation, then, that the standouts are when this vibe is switched out: ‘Send’ falls in the direct Venn crossover between Laurie Anderson and Fischerspooner, its spoken-word new wave pulse clashing delightfully with a distorted bass line; elsewhere, a ‘90s baggy beat makes ‘Boyface’ a gloriously nostalgic earworm; and the expansive ‘Okay’, which ebbs and flows masterfully, sees another doomy synth line and a whirlwind of shoegazey guitar sounds eventually envelop the multiple vocal lines in a way that’s both the most clubby the record sounds, and yet not club-like at all. So much so, that the subtle euphoria of closer ‘10’ is all but lost in its long shadow.

Expansive, yes, and definitely interesting; ‘too much’ is too strong a term to apply to a record that’s so sonically understated, but there’s a sense that, in showcasing everything they could be, any thread running through the record is less clear. Even the hypnotic, playground-like vocal repetition that notably gives opener ‘Rain’ its joy, and ‘Mate’ its nighttime vibe, is instead irritating on the not-quite-disco ‘Peel’. (Almost) never not accomplished, albeit - as a whole - a little confusing, this second time around.