Album: The Notwist

Neon Golden, City Slang

The Alt.Country invasion continues to make deep inroads into the European psyche, with this latest album from the Bavarian quartet the Notwist adding to the burgeoning canon of notable recent faux-Americana releases from the likes of Britain's Lincoln and Sweden's St Thomas. Singer/lyricist Markus Acher has the plaintive tone and keen sense of alienation characteristic of the genre, while the band's melodic subtlety on tracks such as "Consequence" recalls the fragile beauty of Massachusetts sadcore combo Wheat. Elsewhere, the addition of mellotron, horns and strings enables the development of more complex, multi-layered arrangements akin to Lambchop. What really sets the Notwist apart from such peers, though, are the synthesiser parts and electronic treatments of Martin Gretschmann, which produce intriguing juxtapositions when set against the more traditional instruments. The single "Trashing Days" is typical, its dry-gulch banjo riding a crackly glitch percussion track against a Brian Wilson-style horn arrangement. In places, the elements combine to make a kind of electronically abraded indie-dance music, with "Pilot" attracting comparisons to New Order. Acher, though, is a more condensed lyricist than most British songwriters, sparking one's imagination with phrases like "Step into the room of opaque air" and "Fail with consequence, lose with eloquence and smile". It's taken the Notwist some time to reach this point – Neon Golden is their sixth album since 1990 – but on this showing, the maturation has been worth the wait.