The concept of sound being music and not music being music is hardly new, but you can’t always have guitars so clearly out of sync with each other, and expect it to sound tolerable. It almost feels like the band are trying to make the song jarring to listen to, but that may be giving them too much credit. While certain tracks are enjoyable (“No Room To Live” is an admirable lead single), the sum of these parts simply can’t stand as an album, even if said album only clocks in at 31 minutes.

It’s not bad music, it’s good. It’s just monotonously repetitive, and lacks a serious identity. It’s like the band observed the scene emerging, and made a checklist of things to include. Androgynous teenage lyrics? Check. Male and Female vocals designed to always bring angsty sexual tension to the forefront? Check. Fuzzed out guitars? Check. This is the bands clearest sounding album to date, and that only solidifies the fact that if you want to get bigger, you’ve got to get clearer. Girls just did it with their follow-up EP, and it sold like hotcakes. However, that means it’s yet another aspect that Times New Viking can’t claim to be the first to really pull off.

Beach rock or lo-fi, it’s in a resurgence, that’s clear. But everything is cyclical, and when a band is five albums in after only 6 years, and this is the content of an album, you wonder how long the trend can keep up. Then again, Times New Viking just aren’t the kings of the genre.

The Devil Makes Three – Old Number 7 video