Are These New Puritans monks in a temple of post-rock ruin?

These New Puritans, comprising Essex-born twins Jack and George Barnett, make a long-anticipated return with their sixth album Crooked Wing. It’s another timeless masterpiece of anti-pop enchantment and classical melancholy.

Simon Heartfield kindly agreed to guest review Crooked Wing. You can purchase your copy here.

Crooked Wing review

Album opener ‘Waiting’ drifts mournfully in with choirboy voice and dramatic church organ – monks in a temple of post-rock ruin.

Sonically, the album references many of their earlier works without repeating old ideas. ‘Bells’ has shades of ‘Field of Reeds’ – Jack Barnett’s wistfully delicate vocal drifts in between piano and bells, which ebb and flow mournfully.  

‘A Season in Hell’ featuring George Barnett’s thunderous percussion and insistent rhythms could be from the Hidden era and is punctuated with more organ and choir to superb effect.

‘Industrial Love Song’ is the stand-out track for me. A metaphysical tale of love between two industrial cranes: “Don’t tell me of wicked human ways, I’ll hang around here/And dream of you for days.” 

Guest vocalist Caroline Polachek duets with Jack Barnett to a sumptuous soundscape of piano, bass guitar, and vibraphone. Other guests on the album include former bandmates Sophie Sleigh-Johnson (flute) and Thomas Hein (percussion).

Jack Barnett doesn’t sing so much as intone. There are words here, perhaps something about loss, about beauty – but they dissolve, deliberately, into a sonic mist.

‘Wild Fields’ is a feast of sinuous, pulsing drums, drones, and baleful vocal textures – the ghost of future pop music. The title track rumbles in low with muffled, subterranean percussion, which suddenly dissipates to reveal plaintive piano and church organ and layers of voices, which ascend to a dramatic, theatrical conclusion. Truly a ballad for the age of collapse.

Truly a ballad for the age of collapse

Simon Heartfield

The album shifts down a gear with ‘Goodnight’ and, finally, ‘Return’. The former’s shifting layers of wistful piano, bass guitar, and vibraphone are gorgeous. The latter reprises the choirboy voices of the album’s opening “I am waiting, I am deep underground, I am listening for any sound.”

Final thoughts

What has to be acknowledged is the role of co-producer and long-time associate Graham Sutton. Surrly he plays as important a part in the TNP sound as Martin Hannett did for Joy Division?

It’s reassuring that TNP are still at the height of their powers after all these years.

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