Eagulls - Eagulls

Eagulls

Eagulls

3 March 2014

Partisan

 

4 stars out of 5

 

 

If you’re like me and think that Pornography was The Cure’s best album, that Bauhaus never topped In the Flat Field, and fantasize about a love child between these two legendary LPs, then Eagulls is your go-to record of 2014. The record pays tribute to the post-punk/goth rock scene of London in the early ‘80s without sounding derivative; indeed, the band generates so much open-wounded anger and existential angst that even if they covered note for note the entire Killing Joke ‘80s catalogue they’d still sound fresh and new.

 

Eagulls show a sense of melody within their condensation-of-all-human-pain-ever-into-three-and-a-half-minute tracks that sets them apart from the Peter Murphys and Robert Smiths of thirty years ago. Tracks like “Opaque” and “Possessed” worm their way into your ear’s memory and have you singing them to yourself hours later, something you might find difficult to duplicate with “The Figurehead” or “Double Dare.” Eagulls avoid the slower tempos—the slowest things you’ll find on their debut LP are still very moshable, and I’m pretty sure “restraint” and “subtlety” are words that don’t exist in any dictionary the members of the Leeds quintet have ever read. Every track is a primal scream echoing through a deep cavern full of bats and toxic gasses, and as such is a thing of incredible beauty.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger