The Physics House Band – Mercury Fountain (2017)

In this day and age, of “post-truth” and mass media, we are constantly lambasted by angsty reports that music, in its various forms, is wilting away – tabloids screaming that shoegaze will never reach the same peak it did in the late 5th century and that dance music died with Mother Theresa.

This isn’t true; artists in all genres are “carrying the flame” – Kendrick Lamar at the forefront of hip-hop, artists such as Luo in electronic music, and for prog: The Physics House Band.

And on Mercury Fountain, it’s clear that Brighton’s premier proggy/mathy/noisy rock outfit are very much keeping the genre alive; recalling the intense technical skill of bands such as King Crimson through their consistently fierce drumming and erratic guitar leads alongside the boundary-pushing sonic experimentation of Pink Floyd and delivering them with the precise, thoughtful songwriting of Rush – not forgetting the admirably nonchalant pretentiousness of Yes – though they haven’t, yet, succumbed to writing medieval themed concept albums, fully furnished with live-on-ice performances.

Mercury Fountain is, according to the band, a concept album and, indeed, one of great depth (some stuff about gaining knowledge through flying around astral planes – I don’t do it justice, read the link for yourself), however the great trick of the album is that it can be enjoyed otherwise – forgetting about parallel universes, Mercury Fountain is a wonderful, eclectic, noisy romp, complete with bangers such as ‘Calypso’ and ‘Surrogate Head’, more chilled tracks like ‘A Thousand Small Spaces’ and sonic masterpieces like ‘Mobius Strip’.

The Physics House Band have, once again, created a clever, yet extremely enjoyable, record that both pays its homages and pushes envelopes.