This is what following a band is about. Watching them from the beginning, cute and fresh faced, with thousands of ideas, and then slowing slimming down, and turning out their debut album a few years down the line. If you were to imagine what Hester Thrale's debut album was to sound like, 4 years ago, you wouldn't imagine it to sound like this, but at the same time, with hindsight, you can imagine how psychid have ended up sounding like this. Confused yet?
Although having pretty much written this album from scratch in the last couple of years, some of the old songs have survived in fragments. It's fustrating to listen to Moonshine and not hear the chorus that we had grown accustomed to, but a new variation instead. However Jezebel has grown, through the recording process. From a song that was pretty much hidden amid other gems in the old live set, it has become a magnificent song, showing what talent the bands have within them.
This is a pretty skewed way at looking at the album though. Not many would have approached this album having heard the old live sets. Completely fresh, this album just asks to be played at top volume so that all the crescendos can be played out to maximum effect. There's also two sides to this album. On the one had you have tracks that are on a grand scale, showcasing the afrorementioned songwriting skills, such as Split Lip Sucker and Jezebel, and then there's this 80s electronic side of tracks like Digging For Victory, Everything She Is and Radio. While live, the electronic side is more apparent, but recorded, these seem to work less well, and it's the older, more traditional songs that work better.
It's certainly not what we expected from the debut album, but for a first album it is ambitious in the right way. Let's just hope that they have the chance to make a second one.
4/5
Psychid website
some pre-psychid songs can be downloaded here