Githead – Waiting For a Sign

The unlikely four piece with the equally unlikely moniker return with their first album in five years. Led by Wire's Colin Newman, Githead are Malak Spigel and Max Franken from Minimal Compact and Robin Rimbaud from Scanner. This time around, they reconvened with the blankest of pages: Waiting For a Sign was recorded in improvised sessions, as the band explored little more than chords and arrangements. Well that's their story.

On this evidence, they’re either stretching the truth just a little or they really do connect intuitively and deeply. Sure, To Somewhere and Slow Creatures have a sense of little more than a groove being teased and explored. But elsewhere, as on Not Coming Home and For the Place We're In, Githead's angular guitar pop feels too accomplished by far to have been cobbled together on the hoof. But, ultimately, when the end product tastes this good, who cares about the recipe? [Gary Kaill]