Ellery Roberts’ former band Wu Lyf were accomplished hype machinators, generating industry appetite for their guitar rock by turning novelty tricks like advertising demo tapes of their guitar rock for £50 on Myspace. Roberts’ new outfit is seemingly uninterested in such hijinks – but that’s also the sell. Created with his Dutch artist-girlfriend Ebony Hoorn, LUH is billed as the pair’s passion project, and there’s a thread of fevered, vaguely political idealism that runs through the album. That hook, however, is no match for the music itself, in which the gravelly bombast of Roberts’ vocal – which sacrifices consonants, syllables, even whole words to a stream of rousing vowels – is nicely supplemented by Hoorn’s heavily accented near-monotone, over a mix of electronics and emotional goth-rock. It’s a combination that is gratifyingly peculiar and, thanks to a knack for satisfying toplines, holds a significant amount of jubilant appeal.
