When a singer’s band walks out on him and he starts referencing Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now as inspiration for his new album’s title track and the exposing of his inner savage as the album’s theme, you go in expecting music like cows being ritually slaughtered, judiciously lathered in angsty bursts of black neurosis.
But despite Dinosaur Pile‐Up’s Matt Bigland being forced to make this entire second album on his own – as he had, by choice, with the Leeds Brit‐rockers’ 2010 debut Growing Pains – Nature Nurture is an amiable 36 minutes of pop‐savvy guitar crunch with a synthetic sizzle that avoids introverted indulgence in favour of festival‐friendly Foo Fighting gleam rock about girls.
In keeping with Matt working with Band Of Skulls producer Ian Davenport and support slots with Cage The Elephant and Twin Atlantic, tracks like Summer Gurl, Heather and White T-Shirt And Jeans beam with transatlantic accessibility and post‐emo pizzazz. The riffola! The riffola!
