Brendan Telford, Journalist

Brendan Telford sorts through the shit with guitarist Lindsay McDougall to divine how punk legends Frenzal Rhomb are still pulling the wool over our eyes.

Instead of sounding refreshing and reinvigorated, Brilliant comes across like a B-sides and rarities package hastily put together by an unscrupulous record company after one of the members has died in a horrific plane crash.

The nature of this music is that it’s as awe-inspiring as it is confronting, an evocative mélange of art and artifice that is nevertheless wholly immersive.

Gorgeous and personal, On The Water is an album of majesty and grace, the defining document for Herring’s immense songwriting talents.

A sense of remorse and longing burbles underneath the surface, and it is this omniscient presence that drives the album.

Nootropics certainly lives up to the band’s own description of being “difficult to listen to”.

There’s no pressure valve track here designed to startle the listener with a cathartic release of energetic aggression – everything is tempered and densely textured.

The scary thing is, All Hell is actually very good.