Jul 122 min read

PreHistoric Animals - 'Findling Love In Strange Places'

This is so good and doesn’t conform to Prog Rock, Prog Metal, filmic Metal or any other labels we might want to place on it. It’s songs. Damn good ones.

A dystopian version of ‘Love Actually’? That would be to negate the whole appeal of the film, wouldn’t it? I don’t want to see Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister in a barren wasteland, although some would say the current PM is currently in exactly the same position.

Anyway, this is what PreHistoric Animals think their fourth album is like, people finding love when least expected and the music leans into that beautifully. It has hope.

Electro arrival into a big, bothersome riff with a melody reminiscent of a Bond theme; it has a bit of a Muse feel too, although ‘The City Of My Dreams’ has metallic toughness too. Enjoy that insistent synth line in poppy ‘Living In A World Of Bliss’, it has a melody that attaches itself to you.

Rather mournful piano greets us in ‘Strange Places’, a choir is added and it all

becomes very important-sounding; this shirt sequence segues into the Prog Metal twitchiness of ‘He Is Number 4’, a bit of Indie in the middle of this too, a story apparently about employee 10 about to blow up the factory before falling for employee 4.

Warmth finishes the album with minimalist synth washes and sweet vocal of ‘Nothing Has Changed But Everything Is Different’, even when it explodes, it has an eighties big arena feel, becoming a little ominous later on.

This is so good and doesn’t conform to Prog Rock, Prog Metal, filmic Metal or any other labels we might want to place on it. It’s songs. Damn good ones.