The seldom dull Canadian trio ‘Plants and Animals’ return after a four-year hiatus with ‘The Jungle’. Released on 23rd October, it’s the band’s fifth album, again on Secret City Records, Messrs Spicer, Woodley and Basque seemingly intent on prolonging the listener’s woozy chill-out experience from the outro of ‘Waltzed in from the Rumbling’ albeit perhaps transported to the chaotic set of Jumanji.
Album opener and title track blends
taut Hooky-era bass swathed in the sound of crickets reminiscent of REM’s ‘You are
the Everything’, an unsettling and expansive nocturnal wilderness, prey frantically
fleeing hungry predators in the gloom. ‘Sacrifice’ explores this relationship
further, a sort of Zep ‘Four Sticks’ meets an inversion of BC Camplight’s
‘Back to Work’… leaving one craving a bit more order and structure to this
untamed outback…..where’s Tarzan when you need him?
Plants and Animals’ increasing
propensity for electronica is showcased in ‘House on Fire’ the groove as urgent
as the song’s title suggests, dirty analogue squidges vying with two-handed hi-hat,
a sure-fire floor filler in the making, that’s assuming we’ll one day be
allowed to return to clubbing.
All of the above and more
coalesce on dreamy album highlight ‘Le Queens’ with the arrival of guest
Quebecker Adèle Trottier-Rivard and her beautifully breathy Gallic
femme-fatale vocal setting the listener’s pulse racing, queasy guitar competing,
sounding like it’s been played back on a tape machine whose batteries are about
to run flat. The wooziness continues on
‘In Your Eyes’ a heartfelt ode to an uncertain future, awash with restless and
squeamish guitars, the grogginess leaking into closer ‘Bold’ before the
anthemic chorus acts like the much needed adrenaline shot required to snap you
out of your sonically induced torpor.
Fingers crossed next year’s live shows on this side of the pond go ahead.
Plants And Animals official