Warm Brains - Old Volcanoes

All hail the return of the audible vocal!

OK, that’s over the top; it’s not like absolutely everything released in the past eighteen months has involved hiding any semblance of coherent vocal cord output behind swathes of feedback and layers of noise. This debut from Warm Brains - best known as erstwhile Test Icicle and underground super-producer Rory Atwell - is remarkable for being an indie-pop song not afraid to just be.

Would it have been easier to succumb to fashion’s clutches? To hide the delightfully wonky layers of soaring guitar, xylophone and Rory’s sweetly fumbling vocal amid various distorted sounds? Refreshingly, ‘Old Volcanoes’ is instead going against the grain, allowing itself room to breathe, grow, and in its own subtle way become a beast of a song, all the while avoiding the twin evils of overly self-indulgent lo-fi and plastic anthems.