IO – Our Disintegrating Museum

Museums eh? Quiet, dusty places inhabited by bored schoolchildren on a field trip (still, it beats double maths) and couples in matching anoraks. Installing IO as one of those 'living exhibits' would certainly liven ‘em up a little...okay, scrap that...a lot. Yes, the experimental explorers of rock’s outer circle are back with yet another fine album of glorious (WARNING: wanky music journo cliché ahoy!) sonic soundscapes. 

  

Melding math rock, screamcore, prog (and other genre’s I’m woefully equipped to witter on about) and opening with the awesome brain pounding stereo panning epicThe Lost Cosmonaut this really is an album to lose yourself in. A kind of aural therapy for anyone who’s sick of the vacuous mobile phone music and shitty pap rap (so devoid of the original spark that made the genre so refreshing back in the day that it’s frankly laughable) that’s regrettably becoming a staple for so many of our dear lost youth. Sure some of it sounds particularly doom laden, The Cisco Kid in particular starts off sounding like the human race’s end credits, but then again we live in dark, dark times my friends. Indeed the album’s theme revolves around the “disappearance of logic and reason from society” (no doubt the disintegrating museum to which the album title refers), to that you could add any number of other social ills but then again we’d be her all day. Reinforcing all this anger, frustration and confusion lead singer Al Lawson’s pained, impassioned vocals rip through the music like a razor blade through an eyeball, frequently shocking you back to earth just as the quiet / loud / quiet / ruddy loud noodly bits are lulling you into a false sense of insecurity.

At just 6 tracks long you might think you’re getting a raw deal but the first three are particularly meaty pieces of work, all clocking at over 8 minutes each and delivering the kind of range and performance in a single song that a lot of groups would actually need a whole double album to match. Impressive stuff. A prize exhibit all round in fact.

Our Disintegrating Museum is out now on Grammatical Records.