Autobahn – Dissemble

Album Review by Claire Francis | 11 Aug 2015
Album title: Dissemble
Artist: Autobahn
Label: Tough Love
Release date: 21 Aug

The opening track to Autobahn’s debut album is an intriguing one. The nascent Missing In Action is formed of a draughty, metallic clanging which gradually grows into an urgent wash of feedback and hyperventilating drums, before erupting into an aggressive punk explosion at the two-minute mark. It’s an intro that piques interest, but from that point onwards, Dissemble yields few surprises.

The Leeds-based five piece cleave to a post-punk aesthetic so heavily steeped, consciously or otherwise, in Joy Division influence that there’s little room for the group to make its own mark. Distinctly ominous, vocals heavy with reverb, the majority of tracks on Dissemble are competent variations on the same theme. “The worst is yet to come”, Craig Johnson intones on the title track, a slightly disconcerting prospect when we’re only at the album’s half-way mark. Things don’t exactly get worse, but nor do they come any closer to enunciating a point of difference that would render this a more memorable debut. [Claire Francis]

Playing Manchester Gullivers on 10 Sep and Glasgow Audio on 12 Sep http://facebook.com/autobahnmusik