Eagulls – Ullages [Partisan Records]

Ullages, apart from being an anagram of Eagulls and the name of their second album, is the name for the amount of air in a container that stops it from being full, like the empty space in a bottle of wine. Disappointingly, it’s quite a fitting name for a record that’s front-loaded with its weaker tracks. Eagulls have all but moved on from the lithe, vital punk of their self-titled debut in favour of a distinctly 80s guitar jangle. This surprise change of direction is impounded by the fact that the first three tracks are the longest on the album, all at around the five minute mark.

Singer George Mitchell’s voice has always had something of a Robert Smith-style tone to it which, when combined with the trebly guitar sound gives the impression of The Cure with Johnny Marr on guitar and all the fun sucked out. There’s the occasional nice idea, like ‘My Life in Rewind’‘s waltz time signature, ‘Euphoria’‘s drum rolls and ‘Velvet’‘s dark and foreboding bass but the plodding tempo and the almost whiney vocal too high in the mix prevent the whole thing from straying too close to interesting.

By the time ‘Psalms’ drags itself round with the lyric “Is our future grey as the slabs on our drive?” it’s easy to give up hope that the album will go anywhere. And then without warning, the clouds break and ‘Blume’ comes along, reminding us of the reason we loved Eagulls the first time around. While it’s not quite the garrotte wire punk of the first album, there’s an almost krautrock energy and the production gives it a lovely watercolour wash reminiscent of The Horrors. It’s followed by ‘Skipping’ which pulls a similar trick with a slashes of guitar over a rock solid rhythm section, coloured by the guitarists’ newly expanded pedal boards. The middle section of the track builds to a solid wall of static-y guitar only to break for the line “So I’m the victim of monotony” which presumably doesn’t, but could just as well refer to the previous 25 minutes or so.

Lead single ‘Lemontrees’ puts the chiming guitars and new found love of the space between the instruments to good use, alternating between upbeat sections and reflective, stripped back passages. The record starts to lose its way a little again with ‘Aisles’ but the military drumming just about holds things together before the alternately spectral and noisy ‘White Lie Lullabies’ brings things to a close. It’s fair to say that Ullages is a frustrating listen. Clearly Eagulls are trying to push their sound into pastures new, but the ratio of hits to misses here is unfortunately skewed in the wrong direction.

Ullages is released on 13/05/2016 on Partisan Records.