Album Review: Penfriend - "Exotic Monsters"

 

Penfriend aka Laura Kidd has been a fairly regular presence on our monthly Singles Bar page with a number of releases in recent months but this is her first full album since putting her previous She Makes War persona to bed a couple of years back. And generally speaking they've all been pretty good as well so it's fair to say that the debut Penfriend album Exotic Monsters (which has just crashed into the national Top 30 as I write this) comes with a fair bit of expectation attached to it.

It gets off to a good start with two former singles, the brooding Gary Numan-meets-Alison-Goldfrapp title track and the lurching tale of dark childhood memories Seventeen setting out the stall well here. The first new track comes with Hell Together, a creepy ode to being trapped in a co-habiting situation with someone you don't get on with (inspired by lockdown maybe?) with its refrain of "I can feel a storm coming..." sounding incredibly ominous while the skeletal synth-driven I Used To Know Everything, casting a weary eye over the stress of the last few years, is similary unsettling.

The dream-like Dispensable Body and Seashaken (which offers an arm around the shoulder to those struggling) take another look at the stresses of living in lockdown and wondering if this is really happening. The disorientation of Loving Echoes set over a minimalist electro backing is quickly followed by the grungy riotgrrl stylings of I'll Start A Fire and the furious Cancel Your Hopes proves Kidd's versatility as both a songwriter and musician.

The doomy dirge of Long Shadows, dealing with those long nights wrestling with the demons in your head, followed by the gentle Out Of The Blue which attempts to see some light at the end of the tunnel and Black Car which sees Kidd exorcising two years of frustration over the lockdown, the incompetence of the government and the state of the world in general, sign this one off in good style and make for a suitably good finale to a very strong album.

The sound of exorcising the demons of the last few years, Exotic Monsters is an unsettling, at times difficult but ultimately cathartic experience if only because it makes you realise that you're not the only one who's been seriously wondering if you're going mad through the last couple of years and that others out there understand what you've been going through. With impressively varied and deft musicianship throughout, it proves why Kidd is one of the most under-rated songwriters in the country at the moment and is well worthy of your attention.

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