In many ways Signs of Life was a record that Asylums both had to make but didn’t need. On the one hand they Essex quartet have managed to diversify over their career, founding their own Cool Thing Records label and putting out releases by A Cause in Distress and BLAB alongside producing the bi-weekly radio show Cool Thing Presents. On the other lockdowns and the general sense of drift many people in Britain have felt in both social and cultural terms pretty much forced them into recording what’s their fourth album to date.
Even for veterans the recording process can sometimes be tortuous, but given only a couple of weeks access to the historied Rockfield Studios in Wales, the band decided to leave nothing behind, grafting strings, organ and piano onto their angular, hard edged music. Once Manic Street Preachers producer Dave Erninga had signed on their license to reinvent was used to the full.
Signs of Life retains some of their past abrasion on Kyrpto Klepto, but it’s main quality is in the representation of 90’s indie rock of various stripes via the likes of Say Goodbye Before You Die and The Mirror. Whilst this is hardly a field which lacks candidates, the plaintive Instant Coffee and Erase The Edges’ bygone jangle are both proof Asylums have made the record their instincts told them they had to.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 