Album Review: Pumarosa - Devastation

On their second album London’s Pumarosa channel '90s British electronica - Massive Attack, Faithless - and even contemporary bands like Purity Ring, while still retaining a live instrument sound and feel. The result? A very accessible, indie-friendly record.

Opener Fall Apart is frantic but subdued as frontwoman Isabel Munoz-Newsome’s dreamlike vocals ebb and flow. I See You is a more psychedelic affair and the arrangements both here and on Adam's Song and Factory give nods to lo-fi Detroit techno. 

Adam’s Song could have been a Sneaker Pimps track and it’s these influences that underpin, but don’t saturate, a sound that the band continue to prove is their own. They’ve even managed to include a late '90s and early '00s house anthem in Heaven.

A more experimental, focussed and tighter affair, when compared with their critically well-received debut, in a lot of ways Devastation is more satisfying.