Still House Plants - If I Don't Make It, I Love U

BACK IN STOCK having sold out the initial run after a pretty remarkable MEDIA BLITZ (can't buy a bad review this lot) is this third album of post-hardcore referencing, avant rock acrobatics from the increasingly impressive Still House Plants. A clear win-win here, as early adopters will enjoy jumping back into the signature-unfamiliar of the SHP sound, and those new to their game will likely find this the best entry point, striking as it does a balance between the visceral thrills of those early recordings and a slight sharpening of focus and clarity of recording. To these ears, their creative trajectory bears some of the same hallmarks as that of Moin, each album a subtle but clearly present refinement of their own space: the same, but different, and could only be them. The drum and guitar interplay is increasingly inventive, elastic and unpredictable in that jazz-timed Kinsella brothers kinda way, but as superstar turns go, it’s hard to see past Jessica Hickie-Kallenbach's vocal, an astonishing feat of low pitched, soulful intonation charged with longing and tortured desire that rarely belongs with music of this kind, but makes perfect sense in tandem with such rubberised and malleable sonic experimentation. Lovers (post-) rock, perhaps? It's what the title suggests after all, and not inconsistent with something you'd hear from an imperial era mid west emo outfit. Whatever you wanna call it, the future of guitar music is in solid hands with this lot.