Channelling Neu! ’75, with slivers of Can and Cluster, London’s wonderfully-named Eat Lights Become Lights are the brainchild of Neil Rudd, and seven years into their career they speed down new autobahns on this heart-racing fourth album. It accelerates through exhilarating, manic-motorik opener Velocet Vir Nesat, before shifting into melodic, minimalist patterns and deftly detailed electronic drones.
If Steve Reich and Moondog are influences on the more mesmeric Moog-led tracks, the bad-ass beat kicks back in again for the primal, euphoric You Are Disko. But ELBL are no mere pasticheurs. Like Stereolab before them, they adapt the muse to their own moment in time, as Into Forever both ripples with evocative echoes and forges furiously forward into future days.
In just 47 minutes, it invites you on more rides and journeys than most offerings twice that length could muster, thrilling and chilling with impeccable taste and diamond-hard drama.
The farewell of the 10-minute title track leaves you eager to play the album on repeat, immersing yourself in its sometimes melancholy, sometimes motivational moods, and gorging on lights that refuse to go out.
