Circa Waves - Different Creatures

The Guardian 40

(Virgin EMI)

You wouldn’t know it from the hordes of producers, MCs and experimental R&B singers about at the moment, but the influence of the 00s indie explosion continues to echo throughout UK music – not just in the scene’s survivors but also in new bands, such as Wolf Alice and the Rhythm Method, for whom skinny jeans and angular riffs are formative influences.

Circa Waves belong to the latter camp – though few bands wear their nostalgia quite as heavily as this Liverpudlian foursome. It leaves their second album feeling not only retro but slightly lazy, too: there’s nothing distinguishing this lot from the more disposable products of last decade’s guitar-rock boom. Although Circa Waves aren’t entirely inert – this record sees them swap the peppy, Pigeon Detectives-style indie of their debut for nods to the darker, denser, more tedious indie of Editors and White Lies – they certainly make guitar music look like it’s lost the ability to move on.