Any hurtling momentum built up by the West Yorkshire band’s 2014 debut, The Weird and Wonderful Marmozets, was rather crudely derailed when singer Becca Macintyre’s knee operation left her housebound and horizontal.
You wouldn’t wish such an experience on someone barely out of her teens, with much to get out of bed for. However, the upside is the transformative impact on their second album, the work of a band who’ve suddenly had time to think about the world and their place in it.
There are still plenty of their trademark screams, distorted guitars and blast beats, which enthusiastically nip at pop like a pack of pesky Jack Russells. However, the rapidly maturing band are also dabbling with rave-type breakdowns, euphoric pop rushes, and even – in Me and You – a (gulp) tender ballad about dreams of a better world.
Youthful frustrations with the present one throw up Play’s teeth-gritted manifesto, “I don’t dance cos I want to, [it’s] cos I need to”. Meanwhile, Like a Battery declares “The kids on the street will run the country”, but more triumphantly than angrily.
Indeed, positivity and a spirit of adventure bring in textures ranging from ethereal Kate Bush-type piano pop to Madness stomp. There’s a wintry blast of Join Hands-era Siouxsie and the Banshees to the eerily childlike Insomnia’s singalong-ready musings on sleep deprivation. The last, grungier two tracks (of 12) are slightly more generic, but by then Marmozets have made their great leap forward.