The bands’ second album sees them explore bold abrasive sounds as they throw their hat into the ring again for “no way or that way” alternative post punk.
After all, It’s an exciting void, this post-punk, where there is no such thing as doing the “wrong thing.” And Squid’s tact to remain true to that has just gone up a notch.
When the overzealous no-wave Bright Green Field fell into our lap in 2021, we happened to look at the Brighton-based 5 piece with genuine curiosity as we muttered, “just who the f*ck are these guys?” An album brim with superlative ideas sonically and lyrically embracing the introspective feelings of art, it was one more ascending key away from bursting. Now we see them back again post-pandemic with a lot more time on their hands to flesh out those blotches on paper to a finalised scripture of experimental eloquence.
Where Bright Green Field was a mighty surge forward earning their well-deserved participation award amongst a highly competitive market of other experimental odd-balls and compulsive narrators, O Monolith is more of a wander in that same green field simply to admire the view they’ve made for themselves. It’s a far more relaxed tonic: a real experimentation of glitchy machinery, off-colour arpeggios, awkward refrains and embraced lyricism from singer and drummer Ollie Judge, and just seems to embellish their artistic growth ten-fold. How far can we push it? Okay, this much.
Throughout O Monolith, you can certainly hear the band weave through a variety of different sounds, almost as if every idea put forward from Louis Borlase, Anton Pearson, Laurie Nankivell and Arthur Leadbetter was worth including. From what we’ve got, no doubt it was. Leading frontier Swing (In A Dream) is a feeling exactly of that. It’s heavy instrumental accompaniment met with off-piste theremin shifts as Judge and guitar rises during the chorus “To live inside a frame, And forget everything / A swing inside a dream, And all they’ll do is scream,” a desire to return to those once light-hearted feelings we had as a child. Swinging on a swing in a dream seems overtly innocent, but the dying embers of this song is one of darkness. I love it. Devil’s Den is more of that unsettling squirm we saw in Bright Green Field – am I a fool tempting you? – while Undergrowth is a funky overtone of woozy bass, off-centred sax shoe-ins and scratching pickups that Morello would be raising his hat to. The Blades seems to be a converging statement that stands on its own. A joy-ride into the sky with the very machines that can be our downfall as Judge forewarns the illusions of modern technology – and those behind it, “The city burns / The blades turn / All those cameras from the sky / They make you look grey, you’ve lost your mind.” An expansive set of sounds awash with uneasiness that grows in confidence the more we see ourselves coming to the end of the album. After The Flash is a stalwart march off the edge of the world as we hit ascension. Songs like, “If You Had Seen The Bull’s Swimming Attempts You Would Have Stayed Away,” bring together the reality that collaborative nature of the band is the upmost importance of creating such ambitious work as a 5-piece. Low-tone orchestral accompaniments met with a wall of distortion and insubordinate lyricism bring an over-eager finale to the Brighton boys’ second broadcast.
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