Album Assessment
The Penrose Net
The Least of Our Issues
LP, CD, DL
Out now
The Penrose Net are: Allan Crockford of The Prisoners and The Galileo 7 and Ian Button from Dying In Vegas and Papernut Cambridge and I reviewed their debut EP in February 2025 and right here already is their fabulous debut long-player, says Ged Babey.
As I stated earlier than concerning the EP, it is a incredible report – a real cult basic from The Medway Storage Punk/Psych underground made by a few veteran scene heroes. The Least of Our Issues is extra of the identical, a dozen psych gems.
It has every thing; nice tune writing. Lovely distinctive sound & manufacturing. Wit, selection, cleverness and an ‘otherness’. Removed from being simply one other Medway challenge – it has type, an id of its personal.
Clearly it’s knowledgeable by all method of outdated psych information, but in addition cult TV and films….
The ghosts of Gurney Slade, Reggie Perrin and Stanley Moon inhabit fairly just a few of the songs: The Different Man Inside My Head and Mr Probability (a play on ‘missed an opportunity’) particularly. The latter in all probability being a long-lost relative of The Len Value 3 ‘s Mr Gray.
Reminders In all places is a tune about ageing and memory-loss: leaving notes for your self, reminding you to take a look at the earlier post-it-note you left your self however forgot to behave upon…. There’s a to-do listing pinned up close to the back-door of my thoughts.
Nonetheless Time is one other title that’s a play on phrases. Getting issues executed while their remains to be time balanced towards the necessity for quiet and stillness from time to time. Musically, loads of stratospheric phlanger is employed.
The Penrose Net’s debut album lays out their stall wider – assume Paisley Underground meets Stiff Information, Medway meets glam, darkish storage meets acid people.
There’s macabre trash rock (“Hexapod Scene”) baroque soul drama (“In Her Darkened Room”), suburban ennui (“Mr Probability”), in addition to extra prosaic introspection and pop-psych optimism tinged with regrets (“By no means Too Quickly”, “Tuesday The sixth of November”).
Tuesday, the sixth of November has a fantastic lyric; a teeth-gritted account of coping with modern-day forms and Straw Man appears to be concerning the undercurrent of bigotry that runs by means of British tradition, however the music is that retro-cool mixture of guitars and keyboards that sound like zithers and harpsichords and the Get Carter soundtrack.
All that and eight-legged group intercourse….
The Penrose Net’s quiet genius is how they be part of up the dots between Joe Meek sort oddness, with Alice in Wonderland Psychedelia after which the melodrama & pathos of early Glam (see penultimate observe ‘Melting‘) including their very own darkish spin on all of it.
Actual life worries about ageing and current day England seep into the songs when the unique goal was in all probability to have enjoyable with the sounds and aesthetics they adore.
The dynamic duo of Button & Crockford, who play every thing on the album, have gotten collectively a full band I hear to get The Net on the highway for the odd date.
Within the meantime, Followers of Drimble Wedge, the Prisoners and Tales of the Surprising ought to pay money for The Least of Our Issues. You received’t remorse it…
Facet A
1. By no means Too Quickly (3:12)
2. The Different Man Inside My Head (3:19)
3. Hexapod Scene (3:03)
4. Reminders In all places (3:19)
5. Nonetheless Time (3:22)
6. Mr Probability (3:46)
Facet B
1. In Her Darkened Room (3:22)
2. Raven (2:44)
3. Geraldine (4:01)
4. Straw Man (4:43)
5. Melting (3:25)
6. Tuesday The sixth Of November (4:22)
Purchase from Spinout Nuggets or Bandcamp
All phrases Ged Babey with PR content material in italics.
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