Perennial – Art History | Album Review

Perennial push their one and a half miniature banger formula further, and continue their ambient experiments.

Perennial specialises in songs that take you by the shoulders and shake you for around one minute and 30 seconds, giving you a small chance to breathe and doing it all again. First album The Symmetry of Autumn Leaves came refined and focused, giving minimalist dance mod punk catharsis. Each release since has expanded the palette and process, and this fills out the guitar/drums/keyboard instrumentation with what feels like every notable keyboard and drum machine of the 20th century.

This record also stands as a love letter to the advancements in studio guitar sounds of the 20th century. The record is filled with guitar based sound design; feedback squeals are at their full power, each fuzz sound is perfectly raucous and tape reversal is used to its most psychedelic extremes. There is a power in hearing timeless production done well, although the energy of post-hardcore acts like The Blood Brothers courses through the album’s veins.

The purposeful minimalism of the arrangement lets each instrument take full effect, and they have posted run downs of the “materials” used on each song on social media. This is not minimalism by necessity, but by design. Each note played, each drum hit, each syllable sung is purposeful. Nothing is wasted. If Sleigh Bells is about a maximalist future, Perennial achieves the same catharsis in the exact opposite way.

‘Up-Tight’ comes half way through the album, and is one of the few mid tempo tracks the band has done. Opening with an organ riff, this feels more indebted to groove over pure cathartic energy. The chorus harmonies broaden the Perennial pallet, giving another tool and texture to their sound.

Singles ‘Art History’ and ‘Action Painting’ are prime examples of Perennial bangers, with the former being released on flexi disc EP Lemon on Plastic. The rest of that EP consisted of three ambient b sides. As much as the main sound of Perennial live and on record are the sharp danceable riffs, there is just as much ambient studio experimentation on record. Whether it’s the outros on songs like ‘How The Ivy Crawls’, or the pure experimentation of the ‘A Is for Abstract’ and ‘B is for Brutalism’ couplet, there is a clear love for finding unique sounds and the organisation of them in a very Stereolab manner. It is a shame that this experimentation isn’t more integrated into the songs, and is separated by silences delineating which side of the band you’re listening to at each point.

This is Perennial but with another couple of years of refinement since In the Midnight Hour. The record feels timeless. Using old sound palettes lets you be compared to everyone who has had access to them before, but if you have the songwriting chops and the experimental mindset, you can create something that can stand up to them, and that is what they have done.