ALBUM REVIEW: Making Circles of Our Own – New Pagans
Being an up-and-comer is never easy work. Striking out in the first place in the music industry is hard enough, but turning that momentum into a continued forward push is where so many bands fall flat. Belfast five-piece NEW PAGANS certainly piqued interest with their energetic (and wonderfully titled) 2021 debut The Seed, The Vessel, The Roots And All, so a sophomore effort raises the age-old critic’s question; where do they go from the excellent foundation they’ve built?
It takes only a cursory shake of the gift-wrapped present of Making Circles Of Our Own to discover two things. It’s absolutely jam-packed, for a start; that frantic, outward kinesis on the indie side of things is present and correct, but now there’s a far richer diversity of sound on offer. Dip a toe into Fresh Young Overlook, where the walls of guitar that open proceedings are a distance from the hooky intricacies later on. Or there’s A Process Of Becoming, which fuses a quiet, early-era PARAMORE vibe with drum-heavy interludes that inject a new pace into proceedings – nothing is as simple as it could have been, which can be the killing blow for other indie efforts.
The other thing, and perhaps the more important thing when considering that momentum mentioned before, is that Making Circles does not rest on the laurels of NEW PAGANS’ debut. It’s a ponderous, curious beast that sniffs at some boundaries of experimentation and takes big whacking bites out of others. It doesn’t always work – the thumping bass at the forefront of Hear Me, You Were Always Good is certainly not bad, but it does lend a trudging feel to the track. The State Of My Love’s Desires, however – a rolling calm of strings and emotional vocals that pays mind to the beauty in a bad situation and does so wonderfully – does this perfectly, a prominent example of progress and development over retreading the same ground.
If there was a theme that ties the whole thing together it’s one of celebration, of the acknowledgment of drawing on personal icons and then allowing them to take centre stage. Karin Was Not A Rebel pays tribute to designer Karin Bergöö Larsson, bringing her underrepresented achievements to the forefront in an infinitely hooky bop, while the late filmmaker and activist Derek Jarman is recognised on the driving There We Are John as a similarly influential creative force. It adds a window into the world of lead singer Lyndsey McDougall, not only in the sense of it revealing sources of inspiration but by bringing a stronger sense of self into proceedings and staving off the chance of any high-chasing artificiality.
Blending a contagious, skyward energy to grounded, relatable down-tempo moments, NEW PAGANS have certainly one-upped their previous full-length effort with Making Circles. Tones of celebration and sorrow overlap and while it might not reach the fast-paced indie highs of their previous effort (and sands off a few edges in the process), it shows a much more mature side of NEW PAGANS that will keep them in the limelight they’re deservedly earning.
Rating: 8/10
Making Circles Of Our Own is set for release on February 17th via Big Scary Monsters.
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