AMPLIFIER - 'THE CONSULTANCY'
('MUSIC FOR NATIONS')
Having supported the Deftones and Oceansize, Manc trio Amplifier are destined to turn heads on their own backs with their debut single 'The Consultancy' and their debut, eponymous album: a meaty wedge of which has been mixed by a certain Chris Sheldon who is best known for working with bands Feeder, the Foo Fighters and My Vitriol.
And just like Chris mixed in a certain pop element to those bands' music, here with Amplifier he's ensured that the band's tunes remain paramount and at the forefront of proceedings.
'The Consultancy' itself is dark and moody, intriguingly advising us to 'step into the unknown.' Elsewhere on the album, 'One Great Summer' is a tenderly tuneful gem that's anchored by heavy-rocking undertones not too dissimilar from the overwhelmingly powerful dynamics that Staind are so famed for - as 'celestial angels ricochet.' The effect is almost spiritual.
'Motorhead,' meanwhile, is angularly guitar riff focused� though their 'UFOs' track is the stupefying exhilarating highlight with its entrancing atmospherics and chilled groove. In fact - and without exaggeration - 'UFOs' is a heavenly epic, poetry in motion and Prog-Bliss� and very reminiscent of the startlingly touching music that London band Winterlong so seductively deal with pride.
Amplifier frontman Sel Belamir is so obsessed with getting involved in every aspect of his band's music making, he's co-produced some of the material. And, on a major positive, this material is of the elusive 'silk' kind: metaphorically sexy in every sense. 4/5 (Steve Rudd)
www.amplifiertheband.com
www.music-for-nations.co.uk