Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The world is obsessed with the idea of new, not fresh, not innovative, not original, just new. New is the catch-all modern step over the boundary, it implies edginess, when all that is being adorned is shock value, it suggests a tense unease at the revolution to come, yet the same colours are always to be seen flying from the mast at the break of day and at sunset. It feels as if it should agitate and stir things up, an insurrection in the novel, and yet new in this world is concerned with rampant commercialism and is only really a different package to sell the same thing you have had in your hands for the whole of your life.
For French Psych Duo, The Liminanas, the thought of new is to boldly accept the effortless path they have traced with their almost hypnotic songs and sentiment and then allow the idea of dynamite to be wedged into the gaps between the tracks and see the audio explosion break down the barriers of the beige and the constant contemporary call for mundanity to be abolished.
The revolution at the heart of their 2014 album was so good that new in this case means taking the pioneering spirit even further, the name may change slightly but the avant-garde display of music is still ready to be lit by the fuse, and in I’ve Got Trouble In Mind Vol 2, the countdown to the sonic boom is well underway.
Across introductions, poetry-like readings and rarities, the follow up to the 2014 release soon gathers pace, a revolution after all cannot afford to slow down lest it lose its meaning. In pieces such as The Mirror, which features Kirk Lake, La Cavalerie, Russian Roulette, Angels and Devils, Time Will Tell, Lord of Flashington and the unexpected beautiful solitude of space that affords the rendition of Silent Night, The Liminanas continue to broker peace with the enlightened, whilst all the time making plans to subdue and subject the unfathomable export of beige to its darkest corner of existence.
A deeply satisfying album, a set of rare songs of gentle conflict, turmoil and the urge to take arms against the ordinary has never felt so reassuring.
The Liminanas will be at Manchester’s Academy 3 on Thursday 7th February.
Ian D. Hall