London-based Ulrika Spacek released their new record on June 2nd via the good people of Tough Love Records. Ulrika Spacek’s sound is dominated by their three guitarists. On a song like the slowly chugging “Dead Museum,” the densely enmeshed riffs and drones of this Reading five piece recall the kind of blissful noise summoned up by The Band of Susans or mid period Sonic Youth. But there’s also something of Deerhunter about the band’s gauzy but winsome vocal melodies. The album’s highlight is probably “Victorian Acid,” with its tense central melody drowning in waves of overdriven distortion. The hilariously titled “Protestant Work Slump” closes the album in a brighter mood, with a distinct gleam of Big Star.
Much like their debut LP The Album Paranoia released in early 2016, the band chose to record, produce and mix the entirety of the record of Modern English Decoration in their shared house – a former art gallery called ‘KEN’. Modern English Decoration is, in part, a self-effacing play on an interior design cliché that references the meticulous creative processes the band adheres to: “Doing everything ourselves is not just necessary: it’s important to us, as it allows us to truly create our own world,” they said.
