Liverpool band Stealing Sheep release their new album, Big Wows, through Heavenly Recordings. The LP features bold neon pop songs with rave percussion, steelpans, dreamy segues and breathy experiments...

Stealing Sheep's new LP, Big Wows, is a modern pop album that is a little grittier than the norm. It's both cynical and optimistic; dreaminess and pop dance rhythms are cut with eye rolling vocal styles inflected by heartfelt lyrical messages.

The album is constructed as a response to living in the tech era and if you listen carefully you'll catch the occasional electronic sound every now and then. And then there are those that you probably won't spot, as the challenge for the group was to try to make machines sound organic. The result was to take the glitchy, quirky feel of modern life and transform that essence into music.

Of the album's 11 songs (37 min, 43 sec) I'd have to single out 'Why Haven't I' as being the catchiest, most accessible track.

Overall, an interesting release, but it's one that I found wasn't one I was overly bothered about revisiting all that frequently. It's fine for the here and now, but it's probably an album you won't play again after the summer. It's worlds away from their 2015 release, Not Real, which I still play from time to time.

6

Nick Smithson