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Young Knives – ‘Landfill’ Album Review

Posted on the 21 January 2025 by Spectralnights
Young Knives – ‘Landfill’ album reviewPhoto credit: Hannah Carter

Young Knives return with a new album, appropriately titled ‘Landfill’, on 24 January 2025. The record finds the duo looking at the scene they rose to prominence in right in the eye – as they endeavour to figure out what it means to define your own legacy.

There’s a slow-burn intro to album opener ‘A Memory of Venom’ – a song filled with Antlers-esque beauty, stunning harmonies and evocative lyrics: ‘Missing but not forgotten, gone but all around’. ‘Ugly House’ finds the band delving deep into a mathy art-rock sound with all-over-the-place drums and chunky riffs as they lament how ‘I’ve loved you and lost you’.

‘Come on down, we’ve waited a long time for you’ is an invitation you won’t want to turn down on ‘The People From the Second Way. With elements of Blur’s ‘Trimm Trabb’, this song finds the band trying to get people to sign up for something special with them, albeit with the caveat: ‘I can’t do what you want me to do’. ‘Dissolution’ is a more shouty and punky piece that asks one of life’s ultimate questions – ‘Are we better off dead?’ – while ‘Gone, Gone, Completely Gone’ is an eclectic piece with futuristic prog leanings. And some words borrowed from nursery rhymes: ‘Here’s the church, here’s the steeple. Open the door, see all the people. Look at their hands’.

There’s a touch of ‘Space Oddity’ on the closing ‘Fresh Meat’ as the duo face up to nostalgia and it’s inescapable effects, repeating the words ‘The past is catching up again’ with increasing integrity as the music ramps up in tension.

With its focus on identity and whether it’s worth finding answers to unanswerable questions – all pondered against a thrilling backdrop of hooks and beats – ‘Landfill’ is a record you won’t want to throw out.


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