Blood Everywhere - Perseverance - Self-released - Out Now
Perseverance is Blood Everywhere's fourth album and heralds something of a transition from his trademark extended muscular dance workouts of 2018's preceding Enthusiasm to shorter and more concise clubbing and comedown soundbites. Far from being throwaway jingles however, much of this self-produced opus relies on hypnotic hooklines aplenty and the odd smattering of mid-tempo nu-disco sleaze to keep it real.
To these ears, opener You Can Handle It recalls The Grid during their Electric Head phase or the lighter trippier side to Spooky, Doi-Oing and the like and sets the tone for a few other not too dissimilar tracks such as Someone Your Own Age and Other Parts of the Country. Further into the album Stick To The Music is better than many recent Pet Shop Boys b-sides before things go all wonky halfway through, while the amusingly monikered Hello Honky Tonks wouldn't sound amiss in the early Warp catalogue.
Lazy comparisons these may be but this collection is shamelessly rooted in dance culture with its creator citing '90s Primal Scream, Happy Mondays, Berlin and acid house as inspirations. You can hear elements of these during To Banish Imperfection Is To Deny Expression which isn't so much big fish, little fish, cardboard box as big breaks, little flourishes and gabbertronics in your terrified face.
Perhaps the prettier reflective moments are the most absorbing. There's Peak Flow, a cyclical cascading swirl of synth-drenched teardrops and the Mark Hollis-informed title-track that, if it were Nils Frahm, would be plastered all over BBC 6 Music. In fact much of this homegrown album deserves a wider audience because it isn't your average lockdown set of woe-is-me bedwetting. And by 'eck we all need a bit of hands-to-the-lasers right now.