I Like Trains – KOMPROMAT review

If ever a picture sums up the feelings which some are constantly bottling inside them, it’s surely Munch’s The Scream; in a world which has been hijacked by the delusional, most of the sane options feel like they’re mad, whilst on every corner reverse social/secret police stand ready to tweet their OUTRAGE at your most innocent thoughts, high on fascism and invective.

KOMPROMAT arrives after eight years growing in the hearts and guts of I Like Trains, the Leeds quintet who in another lifetime were explorers of post-rock and the arch crimes of simply being. Holed up in the city watching the layers of distortion bend society, their ideas germinated in a febrile cyber-sewer of bad faith and false dawns. Which way is up? How the hell do they know?

Fittingly it’s a record that’s both sophisticated and damaged, Patience Is A Virtue and Opener A Steady Hand seeing David Martin intone without much emotion, as if unstoppering the cork would lead to a flood of anger. On Eyes To The Left the mood is more hallucinatory, unreal, smothered in the neo-fantasy of a new Cold War.

The centrepiece inevitably however is The Truth, a death disco stream of consciousness from minds that have no meter, the indelible funk signature with sublime power enough to start a riot or close a wake, depending on how your dose of Soma is going down at that point. It’s message, like KOMPROMAT‘s, is clear: now scream if you want to go faster.

You can read a full review here.