Album of the Week: Phogg 🇸🇪 - ‘I Need You Without Fear’
- Andy
- 11 hours ago
- 2 min read
There’s a couple of reasons why I’ve stopped writing detailed album reviews. The first is that I think music is so accessible now that people just want to be pointed in a helpful direction and listen for themselves, and don’t necessarily want to read 1000 words of me just wittering nonsense about hats and Lemon Meringue Pietini's. The second is perfectly summed up by the new Phogg album ‘I Need You Without Fear’, which is that most albums I really like are so complex they take 3-6 months of listening and can’t be fully appreciated in a day or a week.
I often refer to Phogg’s Curiosity Box of Musical Treasures, and even if I say so myself, it’s a perfect description for their warped pop psychedelia. And in my head, the Phogg curiosity box still lives in a room behind a curtain that nobody mentions. Mannequins stand in half-assembled poses. Strange carved wooden masks from somewhere far warmer than here hang on the walls. There are small shiny objects whose purpose is unclear, but possibly come from Middle Earth. In the centre sits the box. Slightly dusty and scuffed. Slightly glowing.
Every few years the collective that is Phogg gather around the box and start to write new songs. I have no idea what ‘In the Beginning by Chanceling’ means but it will immediately have you dancing, before switching to a catchy soulful chorus, whilst ‘Just Bought A TV Again’ is a brilliant fuzzy, punk influenced track that gets faster and more animated as it progresses, ‘Mothers Modern Son’ is still completely beautiful and so very different, and both ‘Wild Phone Appears’ and ‘The Most Distant Power’ channel their inner Tim Smith, and the result is highly entertaining. ‘Ever So Spectacle Ride’ has a lovely melody and is possibly my favourite of all. Throughout quite sensational trumpet solos are thrown in, often when you’ll be least expecting them, and each one is perfect.
I’m only just scratching the surface of ‘I Need You Without Fear’ but so far my conclusion is that it is utterly remarkable, a masterpiece of musical oddities. It snatches influences from across the decades and different genres, and it will give you months of listening pleasure if you give it the time and space. Please try and do so.
Release Date: 6th February