Friday 5 March 2010

These New Puritans - Hidden



Right I believe its about time I started my first album review of 2010 and its not from my awaited album list, instead I wanted to begin with These New Puritans second studio album 'Hidden'.

I only knew one song off there debut album 'Beat Pyramid' and that was 'Elvis' with that hard bass post-punk sound and after listening to it, it left a good impression. I was not expecting Hidden to sound like Elvis of course but what i got was a really Epic album and I mean EPIC.

Even when you look at the instruments they used for the album its sounds epic Six-foot Japanese Taiko drums, a thirteen piece brass and woodwind en-semble, sub-heavy beats, prepared piano and a children’s choir, just wow that sounds awesome.

Hidden starts off slow with the short instrumental 'Time Xone' with a build up of horns until 'We Want War' come in a loud bang of drums and synth, this song pretty much sums up what your going to expect from this album, it really feels like your in a futuristic medieval war.

Two of my highlights on this album 'Hologram' although one of the quiet songs truly sounds beautiful in both tune and vocals, the piano and horns also make it memorable for me and the finale '5' with the haunting choir and the many instruments going off until ending with loud horns to signal the end of the album.

My only gripes with the album is that I wish songs like 'Hologram' and 'Canticle' would last longer than 1 or 2 minutes because four out of the eleven songs on Hidden have it.

That said I'm really glad I picked up this LP, its something different from some of the music being released and its a great album to start off 2010. If you want to listen to an Epic Indie album then look no further than Hidden.

9/10