Firestations – Never Closer

Firestations are yet another band unwittingly or otherwise carrying the ‘psych’ tag despite being about as mind-expanding as the slight buzz provided by a swift half down the pub – their guitarist Martin Thompson owns one aptly enough. However once you get past the fact that – yes – a fair bit of the London five-piece’s debut LP is set around a handful of cyclical rhythms, there’s much to take from its breezy melodies and vocal playground games.

There’s an instantaneity to the breathy rise and fall of Forgetful Man, while the record’s towering centre-point Lonely Town sees vocalists Mike Cranny and Laura Copsey combine to stirring effect, rising above the cascading flow beneath them. The six-piece list everything from clarinet to flugelhorn in the liner notes, yet sonically avoid dipping into self-congratulatory music school chamber pop; the record’s unevenness instead comes when they fall back on the currently familiar crutch of repetition, depriving their more obviously natural melodic tendencies. [Simon Jay Catling]