Charlottefield - How Long Are You Staying
[Jonson Family Records]

The debut album from Charlottefield sits in a curious place, the familiarity of the spiky melodically immediate guitars tick all the boxes a la mode but it’s a relief to see proof that genuinely leftfield artists are still out there because this is music firmly experimental in construction resembling more Dischord than Domino.

It took two years of growth before making this album and when Charlottefield get it right it is a genuinely exciting proposition. Expert drumming from Ashley Marlowe playing a huge part in ramming home opener Nine Tails while the hypnotically repetitive guitar lines of A-B and Clipper are both highlights which while firmly Washington DC in resonance manage to remain strictly English in delivery.

Unfortunately though by the time they reach stand out song, How Long, it ironically is just that, a little out of place and during The Eleventh Day one is left fighting the feeling that this band clearly have a point to make, why hamper its delivery with mainly indecipherable vocal lines. A solid start nonetheless but perhaps in another two years we might expect to see the Charlottefield exemplified by the best of this debut.