Ulrika Spacek have always retained the ability to put on a phenomenal live spectacle with their brand of masterful psych-infused shoegaze and mind-alerting visuals. However, artists sometimes set themselves up for a fall if they can’t re-create this magic on record. Thankfully, the five-piece don’t have that problem and have again fashioned a terrific album of what is thought-provoking guitar music with hoards of rich dynamics and textures, all of which retains the magic of their performances.

Modern English Decoration is a direct continuation of The Album Paranoia but, unlike the debut record, which was conceptualised by Rhys Edwards and Rhys Williams in Berlin, all five members have contributed thoroughly to the ten tracks. Those who have witnessed the intensity of their gigs will recognise the advantages in this, with the bass and drums always there to provide a motorik anchor to proceedings as a core element of how the group sounds. Yes, there are three guitars for the majority of their compositions, but it’s the rhythm section which gives the group its intangible dark underbelly.

“We began recording it in our living room pretty much after writing our first record, which was summer 2015,” Edwards explained in a recent interview with Brightonsfinest. “We then finished it off last summer in between festivals. The recording process is often putting together snippets of ideas, twisting and bending them into shape. Quite often we find the ‘song’ a little later in the process, rather than writing it first and then fleshing it out. We started making this record as soon as we finished our first. Like our debut, we started with track one on the album and went from there.” With such a short timeframe in-between the two releases, this is a testament to the band’s creative output and productivity.

Also much like their debut LP, the band chose to record, produce and mix the entirety of it in their shared house – a former art gallery called ‘KEN’, named because of a cryptic inscription found above the front door. This location has evolved into the band’s hub, and a space in which the surrounding facets of videos, artwork and photos are now created. This is where Modern English Decoration established itself as a piece of art.

‘Mimi Pretend’s unassuming synth line initiates proceedings before an intense cathartic release bursts the album into life. The aggressive nature of the track then transforms into a soft, dreamy vocal part as the band alternate with intermittent sonic levels of intensity.

Meanwhile, ‘Silvertonic’ takes you on a Deerhunter-esque journey as the guitars and bass tussle for superiority, with the vocals drifting woozily in and out. ‘Dead Museum’ threatens to enter glam-rock territory with its slow hypnotic riff before ‘Ziggy’s’ catchy guitar hook forcibly penetrates the imagination. Former single ‘Everything, All The Time’ then rides a droning lo-fi current and, like many other Ulrika Spacek tracks, it slows itself down into a worrying calm before heading back into the light.

The title track then gives some much needed respite before the beautifully crafted ‘Full of Men’ takes hold. Carried along by a persistent rhythm section, the second single to be lifted from the album slowly increases its presence at such a steady pace that you barely realise the sonic chaos has taken hold. ‘Saw a Habit Forming’s obscure vocal effect is another slow burner, as is ‘Victorian Acid’ at first, but after 75 seconds it bursts into life and evolves into a tense, spiderweb of lo-fi militaristic fuzz in one of the album’s finest tracks.

‘Protestant Work Slump’ caps the record off in fine fashion as it takes the listener on a sonic transportation of melodically inclined psych-rock, before manifesting into a blissful foray into the uncharted. It finishes off a collection of ten tracks in which the band has shunned the temptation to write a group of singles, and with it comes a more open and expansive style of hypnotic guitars, propulsive rhythms and delicate structures.

Paul Hill

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