Album Review: No Anchor - The Golden Bridge

No Anchor, despite the brutal flaying of the vocal chords, bass amps and the listener's central nervous system, has always balanced the bile with the banal, the viscera with frivolity. Titles such as Gatton Bohemia and The Night of My Second Car Crash are testament to the band's sense of humour, even if it seems buried beneath the sonic gnashing of teeth. Real Pain Supernova, anyone? You do the math. Yet on The Golden Bridge this deceptive balancing act is taken to a whole new level, eschewing some of their more tried and true methods yet never straying far from the menace or the mirth that the band hold so dear.

FTB is a self-deprecating purge, a prologue that sees the band flipping the bird at everything, including themselves (Fuck the home recording enthusiasts/Fuck the woodcutting drummers/Fuck No Anchor). For an album that effectively embraces the absurdity of metal, double-bass bands and the raging middle age, while tearing up their playbook at the same time, this is the perfect mission statement of what is to come. Slack Sabbath inhabits a world where The Austerity Program channels Osbourne et al; Woodman plays out more like a modern psych droner, stretched thin and smoked out, an aggressive drift into the unknown; whilst Anna is the blackest of pop tunes, no matter what Ian Rogers' impassioned howls may suggest. Electricity's esotericism and faux-elegant meanderings drift into Pink Floyd territory, via Steven Wilson histrionics – the perfect encapsulation of artistry and absurdity.

There are enough lyrical and aural touchstones on tracks such as Loose Gravel and Oh Kill to keep from alienating the traditionalists, but The Golden Bridge takes No Anchor into uncharted terrain, and doesn't give a fuck if you join in.