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Four women from Brighton, armed with guitars, an unswerving loyalty to melody and a catholic taste in music. Feel the power.

The Power Out by Electrelane

Guitars, low-in-the-mix Stereolab-esque lyrics and the words of one of Britain’s finest war poets combine with choral effects to produce a staggering variety of sounds on the latest album from Too Pure artistes Electrelane.

Rachel Dalley (on bass), Mia Clarke (on jagged guitar), Emma Gaze (and her clattering drums) and Verity Susman (on intermittent vocals, farfisa organ, saxophone and even more guitar) make up this Brighton four piece who seem to revel in defying genre pigeonholes. These four young women play with a passion and a love of eclectic sounds and are fast gaining a reputation far and wide for creating twisted instrumental soundscapes.

Having already garnered much praise with the release of their debut album Rock it to the Moon in 2001 the band have already toured with Throwing Muses, Primal Scream, Fugazi, Broadcast and Death In Vegas. The Guardian Guide called Electrelane: "Cool post-punk garagey 'Gang Of Four' joyfulness" – the new album, out on Too Pure Records, to whom the band signed last autumn looks set to take them even higher up the guitar rock food chain.

"Their charms lies in the feeling that below the faintly twee, wistful, synthy exterior beats a feisty riot-grrl heart" - NME.

"Bursts of noise and fantastic harmonic singing" - Uncut.

"Electrelane take a contagious, unabashed pleasure in their search for pop ecstasy, No Shouts No Calls is a hats-in-the-air success" - Wire.

The band quickly commended themselves in the hearts of the record buying public with the cracking single On Parade almost straight after moving to Too Pure – and that track – with its intro oddly reminiscent, if only for a moment, of the Inspiral Carpets - appears here too, amongst the varied fare on display.

Steve Albini

On only their second album, the band managed to gain the services of one Steve Albini recorded second album will prove to loom large among the legendary releases that the sometime Shellac fronting nob-twiddler himself has been involved with. Offering a taste of a new direction for the band, the album fuses punk swagger with tight melody to forge a moody erotic strut of a record. A taut pulse like beat is complimented by Verity Susman using her voice as an almost percussive instrument – in the manner of old school Polly Harvey - to devastating effect.

Track The Valleys can’t help bringing to mind the sort of choral shenanigans of the like of Polyphonic Spree – but here the vocals are all overlapping, untidy, yet beautiful – and set to a groovier backing that anything the ‘Spree have yet committed to disc. This mighty track features a new setting for the words of World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon - for the choir - and is nothing short of remarkable. At five minutes worth, this all might seem indulgent – but the end result is utterly transfixing.

As the album progresses the listener begins to realise that hearing The Power Out is like listening to a whole series of bands on disc, rather than just one. Allow youself to forget it’s an album proper on the first play and you’d be forgiven for imagining you were listening to a compilation tape put together by someone with very catholic – but pretty sound – musical tastes. Verity sings in English, then German, French and Spanish, creating an effect quite unlike any vocalist you'll have heard before save the Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser.

As the album progresses we move from Birds, the albums' fourth track, coming on like the gentler moments on the Velvet Underground’s eponymous album. Track five, the superbly titled Take The Bit Between Your Teeth, gives us some truly stellar playing – and again couldn’t be more different from where we just were – it’s all heads-down guitar swirlyness which is then topped by Oh Sombra! - which is more Prolapse-like than anything else, but foregoing shouty singing in favour of melody.

Subdued

Subdued lyrics mix with a great driving rhythm that could easily go on twice the length it runs too. Too Pure could do a lot worse than give us an extended (maybe live?) version of this sometime, on a single perhaps? Listening to it makes you think of Sugarcube by Yo La Tengo – and how that always seems like it deserves to be left to run on longer.

The album closes with a delightful, almost - dare I say - ‘jaunty’ number, a simple three and a half minute piano and drums instrumental - You Make Me Weak At The Knees - that is, simply put, delightful. But we shouldn’t be too surprised by the genre-spanning power of this group of musicians, after all this is the same band, remember, who covered the Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music number More Than This for John Peel and delivered an audacious cover version of Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire on the flipside of their last single. That number reportedly went on to become a firm live favourite during their 2003 support slot on tour with fellow femme guitar aces Sleater Kinney.

Artwork featured on the sleeve booklet of the new album has also been exhibited at Brighton’s Permanent Gallery – featuring the photography of Emma Gaze and Mia Clarke, alongside paintings by Laura Mousavi and Polly Benians and drawings by Finnish artist Minna Liisa Henriksson. The gallery focuses on making innovative contemporary art from across a range of disciplines available to the public, from painting, and sculpture to audio-visual and installation works, as well as photography.

The Power Out is out now on vinyl and compact disc, from Too Pure records. The band’s former Too Pure single On Parade, together with their debut album Rock It To The Moon is also still available – though hard to find – on Let's Rock! Records.

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