Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Though nothing here is truly experimental or innovative (it’s moreso the kind of music that gets labelled as such because of the influences it emphasises) Paddling has a hurtling energy, vibrant in all the sound it carelessly exhibits. It’s a shame, then, that the vocals of drummer and lyricist Ollie Judge so often pull it back to earth; his detuned, declamatory yelp, familiar to artists like Isaac wood, is unyielding and indifferent to anything post-punk has given and then some. I think there are some stellar examples on this album — take The Flyover, though I feel this falls short of the idols it attempts to replicate.
