Albums of the Year # 23 H. Grimace - Self-Architect

The lists of records of the year are all out now in time for you to do your Christmas shopping. Rough Trade shops first and then Uncut and Mojo ahead of the pack of numerous magazines, record shops, websites and blogs. The fact that my own list won't be completed until Christmas Day itself allows me to do some creative discarding of records that begin to take my fancy less, to replace them with albums that have come to my notice late in the day.

One beneficiary of this process is Self-Architect, the blinding debut from London quartet H.Grimace which made the Rough Trade Shops list. The ingredients on it won't be unfamiliar to you. In many ways it's a dense eighties guitar record, without once sounding retro in any respect. Think Sonic Youth, The Cure, The Passions, Wire, Pixies or to come further up to date, Life Without Buildings, P.J.Harvey or Novella.

The guitars never once let up over the course of the ten tracks, (one an instrumental). Elsewhere, singer Hannah Gledhill provides an unswerving critique on a society that's drifted free of its moorings to a howling and relentless musical backdrop. I have to say it's highly impressive. Even when occasionally it momentarily loses its nerve and becomes slightly generic it's only a glitch and the album soon corrects itself and is back on the rails.

Arty, in the best tradition of Punk, Post Punk and Goth, you can't help imagining that if H.Grimace had been around in the eighties they'd have been on 4AD. Although the Sonic Youth influence is undeniable in the way the songs are constructed around darkly strumming and chiming twin lead guitars, throbbing bass, pounding drums and intoned, often spoken vocals, this is actually a very British record in terms of its preoccupations.

It speaks to me of the dampness and quiet depression of these islands. Nine to five existence, spending evenings huddled round beers in pubs or watching TV. H.Grimace look upon the process rather bleakly but this doesn't make listening to Self-Architect any less enjoyable for a moment. A cracking record and a band to watch.