The last five years have been an absolute gold mine for post-punk music. There has been god knows how many debuts from increasingly young bands in the past two years alone, that puts their contemporaries that have been at it for decades to shame. Whether it be Black Midi’s forward thinking and batshit insane 2019 album Schlagenheim or Black Country, New Road’s recent debut For the First Time, full of anxious post-rock instrumentals and harrowing, paranoid lyrics. It’s been a rush of talent and innovation from some incredible minds.
That’s where Squid come in. Like a lot of these bands, I discovered them from one of many live videos. Songs like the frantic post-punk banger “Houseplants” and the ambient and contemplative “Rodeo”, the closing track to their 2019 EP Town Centre, had me absolutely reeling for some new material. The band were also tackling some unique topics such as the existential and materialistic life of a young adult living in their own place, addiction to mindlessly watching YouTube videos and TV shows in bed, and a cleaner you see at your work every day but never talk to. Combine this with their busy, dance punk influenced instrumentals, it was a recipe for greatness. And I’m happy to say that their debut, Bright Green Field, exceeded all my expectations.
The third track, “Narrator,” was a great choice for a first single. This song has everything Squid have made themselves known for dialled up to 11. The math rock guitars clashing and bumping into each other, tasteful, funky synths and a tight ass drum and bass groove.
The cherry on top of this song, as well as many others, is drummer/vocalist Ollie Judge’s vocals. Judge has such a frantic delivery of his words, such a specific cadence in each sentence. It’s baffling how many infectious hooks he can bang out, despite using very little melody through the album. There can be a comparison made to David Byrne, if he were a paranoid schizophrenic. Martha Skye Murphy also gives some guest vocals that take this song from a story about an ego driven, unreliable narrator to the story of a manipulative misogynist and the woman trying to break from his clutch. The song slowly devolves from their danceable self-proclaimed “punk-funk” into a freeform and abstract post-rock track that builds and builds and builds into an absolutely explosive release of energy.
The real opening song “G.S.K” is a head-bobbing fusion of funk, jazz and hip hop, the latter being thanks to that half time drumbeat dominating the song. Some tense synths and soulful horns lead into a very off-kilter guitar break. The band are generally firing on all cylinders here, making it a great start to the record despite being the shortest track, bar the intro and interlude. The same can be said about the track “Boy Racers”, swapping the chromatic and rhythmic guitar parts for lush, layered arpeggios backed up by some very melodic bass parts. Synth player Arthur Leadbetter gets a chance to shine in the second half with some haunting, ambient pads. The guitars are sparing, the vocals are drenched in reverb and tremolo and the synth eventually builds into this bassy, menacing goliath. It’s a beautiful moment, just proving how masterful each member is at their respective instruments.
“Paddling” is a highlight of the album. Fronted mainly by guitarists Louis Borlase and Anton Pearson, the song is lyrically my favourite on the album. A paranoid depiction of social anxiety and how your mind can twist something as harmless as attending a social gathering into to something from a horror film.
“There are people, there are people inside
And they’re changing in shape and in size
Where you going? Don’t wanna go there
You comb your hair and you tense the muscle”
The tempo is more consistently fast than any other song here, suitably so given the panicked lyrics. A driving bassline ups the ante throughout, and the chorus echo-filled lead and jangly chords work perfectly against the rampant drumming.
“Documentary Filmmaker” is a more stripped back moment with its clean, picked guitar chords and curious sounding horns, another great lyrical moment seemingly about insensitive journalists and documentary filmmakers exploiting people during moments of grief. This track gets more and more stripped back in the second half, eventually leaving us with some lowercase, teetering synths backed by a bed of ambient pads, easily the quietest, most peaceful moment out of all these tracks. This sombre moment leads directly into the exact opposite sound in the track “2010.” This track also starts off innocently enough with more serene and clean guitars, despite a spooky sounding synth lead and some eerie vocal performances, the two of them seemingly talking over each other, unaware. However, this sends us into a discordant, fuzz-soaked, feedback drenched breakdown. It’s very jarring and amazingly chaotic, almost reminiscent of the noisier moments of Isn’t Anything-era My Bloody Valentine. This chaos is fleeting however, as we are immediately drawn back into the more innocent sound from the start of the track. This sparing use of noise and discordance works on the bands favour and is easily one of the most memorable moments of the record.
“The Flyover” is a beautiful horn-fronted interlude, full of hypnotic drones and layered harmonies, which leads right into the atonal yet drawn back synths of the next track, “Peel St.” As a whole, this song is squid at their most abrasive. While that noise rock section of 2010 was definitely louder by itself, “Peel St.” keeps up a very aggressive energy for the whole track. The first time I had that jittery synth rhythm I felt like my fight-or-flight reflex was being triggered. Rather than the playful and sometimes sarcastic tone of Judge’s vocals, this time around they felt more like an interrogation. After a brief transition where each guitarist took turns playing the most disgusting dischords they could find, we’re led into a storm of swirling modulated synth noise and rapid fire, rhythmic guitars. In true Squid fashion we’re then sent unannounced into an ambient build-up of clean guitars and pounding bass drums, and the vocals take on a more “dead behind the eyes” approach. And then obviously we’re thrown headfirst back into the chaos. This track is Squid at their most bipolar and it works unbelievably well.
“Global Groove” is by far the darkest sounding track on this LP. Ghostly sounding synths and slow, heavy drums help create a massive feeling of dread, and when the rest of the band finally does pop in, they sound just as defeated. The lyrics themselves are about conformity, mindlessly living, society dancing to one big global groove. It’s subject matter that could have very easily come off as pandering and pretty corny if done wrong, but Judge’s haunting delivery and abstract yet blatant lyricism actually turns this into a very effective message. The track is topped off by a lo-fi voice recording. Someone talking about looking at planes and imagining where the passengers were going, in order to distract themselves from “being lied to, and being exposed to that much realism”. It’s a distinctly unsettling ending to a surprisingly dark track, and a testament to the range of this band.
The final track, “Pamphlets,” is fairly straightforward as far as Squid’s signature sound goes. The lyrics especially uses the bands running motif of taking rather mundane concepts and situations and somehow making them seem terrifying. This time, about a character seemingly being threatened by the pushy suburban salesmen that push pamphlets through your letterbox day in and day out, being challenged by them, taking their promotions as an insult to the character’s stability.
“I’ve got a brand new car right on my drive
But those pale bricks and white smiles
It’s why I don’t go outside”
The ending is another signature post-rock romp. Building, driving drums and lyrical motifs being repeated into oblivion, meanwhile the guitarist seem to be progressively slamming on more and more of their effects pedals, until the track is at max volume. And then, after all that, we’re done. Left to sit with all the noise as our eardrums settle.
Bright Green Field was one of my most anticipated albums of the year and it delivered in every way possible. A stunning debut from one of Britain’s most exciting acts, every single member pushes themselves to the absolute limit of their potential and creativity, no stone is left unturned by the end of the albums 56-minute runtime. It’s my current album of the year, and an amazing sign of things to come for the lads in Squid. Bright Green Field is available now via Warp Records, and you can purchase or stream the album here.
10/10