Pictish Trail – Life Slime

From the off, Life Slime combines heartfelt pathos with a sense of the absurd, to engaging effect. Accompanied by vocoder vocals that give the faint impression of Cher after a bottle of Buckfast, opener Hold It speaks to the fragility of life, the sense that we can never quite capture the present for more than a second, that everything must inevitably crumble. 

The title track continues in this vein, a personal, introspective piece with a rousing chorus and looping, phased beats. All accompanied by a video that is currently being assessed for a Guinness World Record for "most amount of slime poured over an individual during a music video performance".

So far, so throwaway. The trick that Johnny Lynch, aka Pictish Trail, has pulled on us all, however, is that beneath the froth and the dayglo is a set of songs that truly shine, sticking to your ears like Silly String, getting tangled in your brain and your heartstrings. Aeons ago we emerged from the primordial ooze and life began. Life Slime captures not just the heartache of everything that has happened since, but also the hope that there may yet be light at the end of the tunnel.

Listen to: Hold It, Infinity Ooze, Torch Song