Following their 2014 masterpiece London was bound to be a daunting prospect but, despite what the title might suggest, with 2018’s Frightened Voices responded fearlessly. The UK devils cannily rising to the challenge by simultaneously taking their music in a brave new direction while retaining their core character. The viciousness of their debut and the neurotic extremity of London toned down to a dark and gothic mix of post-metal, prog and pop. Songs like Unknown, IWSYA and the wonderful closing track Footsteps have a dreamy Anathema-like quality and their music breathes like never before with a diverse range of tones and instruments. But the band’s patented blasting urbanity remains. The primal Dead Feelings and marauding Manipulator have all the nightmarish obsession, paranioa and eroticism of previous releases. The album’s experimentation brings some inevitable mis-steps: there are some hollow lyrics, occasional forays into shouty metalcore and the off-kilter Rabbit’s Curse places a hurdle in the album’s early stages. But the restless hustle and bustle of the band’s arrangements mean even the tracks that misfire have moments of wonder. Take Funeral Day‘s shift from grimy groove to shimmering mellotron beauty. Frightened is a bold and captivating new chapter in the band’s story but also feels like it’s leading somewhere… Voices investigating new and dark back-alleys that will very likely lead to another masterpiece.
HEAVY METAL OVERLOAD 
IS THERE A PICTURE OF A DOORKNOB ON THE BACK BECAUSE THEY ARE POSSIBLY THE MOST EVIL AND DANGEROUS OBJECTS ON OUR PLANET RIGHT NOW?
(sorry just realised I typed that in all caps, soz)
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YES. FEEL THE FEAR OF THE KNOB. (Tee hee)
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Want to join my new band TERRORKNOBB? I have vacancies for bassist and flugelhorn-ist.
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Sorry. Only the sackbutt is true metal.
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Haha, you said … sack.
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I hate I couldn’t hear this. It is not available in my country. Glad they delivered again for you.
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Ah bugger. I used to just post mp3s but I’m worried about the copyright doing that… Is YouTube or Spotify better?
If you want to hear it I’m sure there’ll be a version on YouTube that you can use.
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I will look on Apple. I like listening to what you post even if it isn’t my normal cup of tea.
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Cool. This track I think you might like. It’s all clean vocals at least so that’s a start!
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I like clean vocals.
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Interesting sound, I think I will investigate more as I never heard Voices before.
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They’ve only had three albums out so far and I’ve liked them all. London was my album of the decade so can’t recommend that enough!
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Thanks, I’ll start with that.
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I checked it out on Spotify. It’s available in Australia. Based on your review I went straight to Unknown, IWSYA and Footsteps and you are totally right about Footsteps.
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It’s a great track. That was my favourite song to come out that year.
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Nice point about the risk/reward of experimentation – glad to hear there were still good moments even when they went slightly astray!
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It seems to be the secret of following up a great album. Do something different. So even if it’s not as good it’s at least new and different. Whereas doing the same again it’ll probably just seem like diminishing returns.
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