Most Normal

Aside from sludge rock veterans like Cherubs or fellow experimentalists like Lightning Bolt, it’s hard to think of another act capable of creating such daringly deranged slabs of noise.

Most Normal is a direct attack that hits like chugging gas from the nozzle. It’s not only thanks to its mauling noise, but the antic and insistent cadence of Kiely’s delivery.

Although Most Normal is every bit as obtuse as one has come to expect from Gilla Band, it represents more of a short sharp shock than either 2019’s The Talkies or 2015’s Holding Hands With Jamie, yet remains every bit as exhilarating.

Most Normal is mostly freeform pieces with no real beginning, midpoint or end. It's typically confrontational, throwing the listener face first into their wall of noise with some spectacular excursions into how to make naturally rhythmic instruments sound ugly, aggressive, unpleasant and ultimately cathartic.

Uneasy and unpredictable, yet invigorating.

The record ultimately comes across as a series of experiments compared to the steely focus of their previous offerings, and perhaps in future will feel like a stepping stone record, but their sheer ability of songcraft means it never drags in its exploration.

Although the handful of newly pared-back songs would theoretically give him a broader space for these more approachable laments, the band don’t yet sound comfortable in this zone, and their work often masks Kiely’s hideous charms. At its best, Most Normal, which Gilla Band produced themselves, reflects the group’s newly gradual creative process.

Budget-price corporations such as Lidl and Ryanair take a mauling, amid a sonic barrage which occasionally coalesces into pleasing punk-funk but mostly glories in making lap-steel sound like a cement mixer. [Nov 2022, p.92]