By Cora O'Malley
They say that you should never judge a book (or in this case, an album) by its cover, but Adebisi Shank couldn't have picked a better image to represent the sound of their latest opus. It's not every day you see an obscenely muscular man with an exploding lightbulb for a head on an album sleeve, after all. It's also rare that you come across a band full of the sort of bloody-minded determination that has been the backdrop to the Wexford-based trio's 8-year career, and has helped them transform from math-rock upstarts into a band that are having too much of a good time being themselves to give a single, solitary fuck what anyone else thinks.
It's as difficult to get a handle on their sound now as it was when they released their second album 4 years ago. Since then, things have changed; they've shacked up with Sargent House, who swooped in and rescued them when Richter Collective went to the wall in 2012; they've also dialled up the reckless abandon to 11, meaning that This Is The Third Album Of A Band Called Adebisi Shank is the home of space-pop with an undeniably danceable bent. It's also the first Adebisi record on which vocals are a readily identifiable presence. Don't worry, that just means that the infamous vocoder that peppered their first two records is out in full force this time around. They even toy with the idea of a straightforward song structure on 'Mazel Tov!', but there are enough flourishes thrown in (horns and an impressive chorus being just two) to keep things from becoming too routine.
Routine? I doubt Larry Kaye, Vincent McCreith and Michael Roe know the meaning of the word. This is music that manages to be both readily accessible and wonderfully bonkers, full of elements that most bands wouldn't be able to get to work together. Then again, most bands don't have the chutzpah of Adebisi Shank. World in Harmony is about as declamatory an opener as you would expect, trading gentle harmonies and bruising riffs for 2 minutes before joyously breaking out into thudding drums and impassioned gang vocals, the ever-shifting nature of the song keeping listeners aloft on a wave of euphoria for 5 minutes (bar the unexpected coda) before crashing into lead single 'Big Unit', whose chugging rhythms and inescapably huge sound allow things to settle, and for the trio's brave new world to take shape.
It's on 'Turnaround' that things really get going. Sure to be a monster in their live set thanks to Kaye's hyperactive rhythms and an impressively busy sound, it works very well indeed alongside such tracks as the fast-paced dance-rock of 'Sensation' (somewhat of an outlier even for a band as ambitious as this), which picks things back up after 'Thundertruth' gives the listener a moment or two to catch their breath. It's on 'Sensation' that Adebisi show that they're beyond easy comparison, having taken elements of their previous work and wrapped them up within something fresh and exciting. It may seem hyperbolic to suggest that there's nobody on earth making music quite like this, but the band seem to be off in their own world these days, making music that's part pop, part rock, part electro, part whatever-you're-having-yourself, and all awesome.
I mean that in the most literal sense of the word - their third album is 35 minutes long, yet full of moments that inspire awe. Case in point: the moment, on penultimate track 'Voodoo Vision', when everything comes back in after an extremely left-of-centre piano breakdown and a false ending - it's a serotonin-fuelled rush that helps the track to coast to a valedictory finish. They even manage to work in a last-minute key change, and pull it off with style. You're not supposed to do that, but Adebisi Shank are all about ripping up the rulebook, and their third album is all the better for it. You probably won't see a more fun record released this year.
