With all their talk of man’s inevitable demise and their pride in self-constructed instruments, Glasgow’s Phantoms play down their wry post-apocalyptic pop as if it were just scatty, TB-afflicted doom-mongering played on Wickes-own plumbing. But they should believe, these Phantoms. For theirs is confident, muscular, oats-fed folk-kosmische that summons brilliantly the propulsive menace of ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’-era Eno, the careworn voice of a Bill Callahan raised in the Gorbals and the clippy-cloppy electronica of [a]Battles[/a]. If it weren’t for the album’s dank mould-spotted soul, it might even be uplifting.
Chris Parkin
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