Named after the city in North Africa seen as a cradle of activism and rebellion, Algiers have never found it difficult to say what they mean in an age where discourse has been infected by propaganda. They’re far from the only polemical voice in music as the new decade begins, but the Atlanta based quartet are one of the most distinctive.
There Is No Year is just as thought provoking, not just because Franklin James Fisher’s voice is one of rusty, graduated soul at it’s rawest, but because it moves through genres as if they were all connected rooms of the same house. This unmapped journey occasionally yields up a gem like strident the We Can’t Be Found or Nothing Bloomed’s grand sense of drama, but the punky hardcore closer void clashes discordantly, a rollercoaster judder too far.
Fisher’s claimed that if Algiers recorded ten albums in a single year they’s all sound different and it’s not difficult to believe he’s speaking the truth. There Is No Year wants to agitate, educate and organise, but Algiers will have to define themselves more clearly for these goals to become reality.
You can read the full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 