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Eleven songs: lasting in total but half an hour. Yep, you guessed it, noise pop, albeit noise pop with an intelligent twist. There this is an enjoyably rumbustious feel to the LP: the album cover (what appears to be all the items of a girl’s bedroom thrown onto a skip) gives an indication of the jumble of noise that makes up a lot of the music. The first four tracks follow a simple template: a chorus of female voices tells of some obsessive girly tale or other over a sonic backdrop of textured and abrasive guitar parts. It’s pretty standard alt-pop stuff.
These tracks do boast some clever the guitar parts mind: the ones in Ambrosia in particular are very well crafted; reinforcing my hunch that in many ways the songs less important than the actual mood that the band seem to be trying to pin down. Still, as if to confound any initial thoughts the listener may have, there is an abrupt change of pace with Sharks. This track is a tense, unsure vibe is built up courtesy of reedy, scratchy guitar layers and some cymbal bashing. It’s pretty tremendous if only for the completely contradictory stance it takes in the context of the rest of the LP.
We return to the stomping with Out of Ruins, which is an angry track at times (listen out for lots of frustrated screaming between the choruses) but boasts a dolorous tail out. Rain is enjoyably bouncy (the closest we get to a melody too) as is Sunbear; whilst Dreams Are Burned is unsurprisingly downbeat reflection given the title. Still it perks up towards the end. Best track is Cloud Chaser which begins with a soft interplay of some and scratchy guitar and builds up quite gloriously into a daft pop song. Last track Broke Heart is no let-down either: a good a circular chord structure backed with a lot of tinny guitar squeals and scrapes eventually grinds itself into the dust.
So, what to think? Invocation is not hiding anything you won’t have heard elsewhere, but it’s certainly a lot of fun to listen to.