When BBC mouthpiece Zane Lowe got his first taste of And So I Watch You From Afar’s second album, he all but lost his mind live on air, proclaiming “That is one of the best pieces of music I’ve ever heard, ever, in my whole life!”
Now, while it’s true that the excitable Mr. Lowe merrily loses his mind on a semi-regular basis, this is one instance where I think the radioland equivalent of a cum-shot was entirely justified. The track in question, ‘Search: Party: Animal’, is a mind-bending, guitar-led masterstroke, but one that I was fully prepared for, having been initiated by the charging riffs of last year’s Letters EP.
A brief loss of mind was fully expected, then – but the biggest treat on Gangs is one that I hadn’t at all bargained for. For all its explosive riffage, breakneck percussion and general sonic sorcery, there’s a surprising elegance to the Belfast lads’ second record. Just look at the shimmering melody on two-part epic ‘Homes’, which wouldn’t feel out of place on an ambient or
electronic album.
Elsewhere, the lilting interlude on ‘Gang (Starting Never Stopping)’ is all the more gorgeous because it drops in straight after one of the record’s hardest-hitting moments.
And then, of course, there’s the fist-thumping, ass-kicking mayhem that ASIWYFA do so well. ‘BEAUTIFULUNIVERSEMASTERCHAMPION’ falls somewhere between all-out thrash and thundering funk, ‘Think: Breathe: Destroy’ is an infinitely adventurous prog anthem and ‘Lifeproof’ closes out the record with an almighty Latin-sounding blast.
It’s been well documented that the foursome scrapped the bulk of their new material with just five weeks to go before recording, and listening to Gangs, it makes complete sense that the whole thing was dreamed up in a hurry. As a result, these eight tracks create a marvellously dynamic snapshot of one of Ireland’s finest bands at their most kinetic.
Despite popular belief, And So I Watch You From Afar do have a voice, and I’m not just talking about the resounding, throaty ‘Ba Ba’s in the middle of ‘7 Billion People All Alive At Once’. Without using a single word, Gangs stirs up themes of determination, turmoil, and brotherhood. And that’s what makes it powerful in an entirely new way.