Let’s get one thing straight – no matter how many times you’ve gone back through your 15-year-old copy of Panic Prevention this year, you’re not about to get a second helping here. And if you think about it do you really want 36-year-old Jamie T, born Jamie Treays, to try and copy what he did in 2007?
The pumped up, tightly wound first single from Automatic’s new album Excess boldly proclaims a ‘New Beginning’ and while tightening things up from the LA trio’s 2019 debut Signal it’s not necessarily a huge leap forward. It is, however, a surge of energy that handclaps manically in front of your face and demands your attention. This surge is almost exactly reprised towards the end of the record on the hectic synth-punk of ‘NRG’, just in case your eyes were starting to droop, although they really shouldn’t be.
“I am safe here” sneers Charlie Drinkwater four songs into Priest’s much-anticipated My Other People, and you can bet your life he’s not the only one. Fans of a certain genre, faced with the London four-piece’s second album, will also be feeling distinctly secure, greeted with a reassuring but well-executed take on the post punk du jour. With vocals along the lines of Yard Act’s spoken/sung delivery and jagged toilet-circuit-sink-shaking riffs, My Other People achieves the confounding quality of sounding instantly familiar on first listen.