EP REVIEW: Codeine – Landlords

With this being their sophomore release, it’s not too hard to understand why LANDLORDS aren’t so well known on these shores. This changes, however, once you hear their music. Billed initially as post-punk, there are clearly far more influences and sounds to their music than that alone. They owe as much to psychedelia, noise rock, shoegaze, post-rock, and at times even a drone kind of vibe, woven together a lot better than that mish-mash genre clash may at first suggest.

You could as easily place their music amongst SONIC YOUTH as among THE CURE and other such traditional post-punk luminaries. They differ enough even from FONTAINES D.C. that while there will be a lot of crossover in fan base, most likely, they are still somewhat apart in what they are creating. While the sound is not so varied, it shows they have confidence – rightly so – in their sound and a clear definition of what they want to create – and they absolutely nail it.

The production values are top-notch, linking in the somehow soothing vocals with a dystopian, off-kilter-sounding lead guitar putting you almost constantly on edge and nervous, leaving you almost not knowing how to react in an instinctive way. It’s almost like the music is reflecting the meme of the dog saying ‘Everything is fine’ while sitting in a burning building – you know that it’s not, but you still kind of feel that it is, somewhere within you. There is a definite impression that in a live setting, this would almost be a wall of noise at times, both in your face and rubbing your shoulders at the same time, sitting at quite the weird juxtaposition. They combine a fair amount of melody within that discordant, dystopian ideal which feels a lot more luxurious than you would expect if you looked at the list of genres above.

There may only be five tracks on this EP, but they are so well crafted that you end up listening to it on repeat several times without even realising you’re doing so, making it feel a lot longer than it actually is. The only real gripe you could have is that there are only those five tracks – they certainly leave you wanting a lot more than there is. It’s a continuation in terms of the sound of their previous, eponymous EP, which gives you something more to listen to in the same vein, again reinforcing how clear their vision of their sound is within them and showing a surprising strength of conviction for a band so early in their career to not consider branching out in other directions, to either alter or further nuance their sound.

In short, this is an excellent EP, both as a continuation of LANDLORDS‘ previous work or even serving as an introduction to the band. There is a genuine depth of sound and of songwriting which indicates there could or should be a bright future ahead for this talented act, should they continue on their current trajectory and show the strength of conviction in their sound that they already have in this sophomore EP.

Rating: 8/10

Codeine is out now via Church Road Records.

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