Phantom Power

When Phantom Power is bleak, it's startlingly so. "Out of Control" is a Stooges-style rush of torture-chamber ambience that's as dark as any Furries song to date. But more often it's playful: the galloping glam of "Golden Retriever" finds Rhys appropriating the language of old bluesmen and twisting it into modern misshapes, while the likes of "Slow Life" have keyboardist Cian Ciaran's electronics assimilating into song structures with a skill that's previously seemed elusive. Sure, it's a jumble, but, like the Beatles' White Album, it hangs together--an album united in the face of adversity. --Louis Pattison