Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

All you need is something different, something slightly dissimilar than what anybody is else is doing and the world becomes your oyster. For Scott and Maria Owen Midlane of Noterminus, their debut album, the intriguingly titled Haselupker’s Ink, the oyster is a delicious and rampant morsel which uniquely captures the idea of visionary imagination alongside the pulsating power that dominates the album.

If the thought of crunching guitars chomping at the bit and vocals that swim between the duo with a delicate balance of horny angelic to deep, incensed and bountiful doesn’t get your musical gastric juices going then perhaps there is very little hope left in the world. For Noterminus, the charm and detail is everything you could almost ever wish to hear in a genre that has been sadly lacking of late in terms of groups from the U.K.

To hear Maria Owen Midlane’s growling vocals, the sneer and scorn on tracks such as Hilary and Muted Creatures and then in the same space the cerebral beauty that resides within the songs are breathless, an astonishing act of equilibrium that is drawn out further and with great poise.  The heady, almost romantic mix of devil and angel in a setting that Scott Owen Midlake captures well as he joins her in the searing vocals and demonic like guitars is enough to send the listener down roads not experienced for quite a while.

With the grounding that Maria Owen Midlane has had it is not surprising that her range seems to encompass all that is good in the genre. From her time with sublime The Reasoning and her yin and yang vocal style with the fantastic Rachel Cohen which had fans of the band rightly in a musical fervour when they watched them live too her time now working with her husband, the way she has conducted her music has been a great joy to watch. With Scott at her side and being the courage behind the storm that Maria conducts, there really should be no stopping them.

With songs such as Crawling Seasons, the superb opener in Tarnished Halo and the amp destroying title track of Haselupker’s Ink thrown in for good measure, the oyster has been taken out of its shell and devoured with absolute relish an makes the album one of storming quality.

Ian D. Hall