While every other review I have seen written so far about this album seems to revel in the glorious post-punk modernity of the release, the good folk at Janglepophub Towers (i.e., me in my home office) appear to be the only ones that feel the main celebration of this debut Cult Value album by Oort Clod is the sheer brilliance of their take on an alt.jangle aesthetic that appears to be becoming increasingly more important to the genre over the last 18 months.

Collaborating with the Safe Suburban Home and Repeating Cloud labels, who have become synonymous with each other of late, this Manchester-based act deserves to take their place on the same roster that has included celebrated alternative jangle-pop meets post-punk acts such as Teenage Tom Petties, Dignan Porch, and Mythical Motors, with a debut album that touches on so many nuances of ‘jangly weird’ without ever really exposing their seams.

The first half of the album is more sedentary. Here The Lake, the title track, and Politicians Eyes recline in a mixture of Easy Sleeper-style lo-fi jangle that is juxtaposed with slacker-pop drawn-out melodies that are made so perfectly weird by just the right amount of post-punk dust settling between the cracks of each riff and faux melody.

The midtempo tracks continue with the twitching mix of Wire encrusted anxious riffs and Nervous Twitch’s post-punk in #7 and Car Talk before a switch is suddenly flicked in Paper Cuts, 96 Tears, and Imagination, and Oort Clod suddenly burst into a crescendo of late album jangle-punk that not only shudders straight through the overall listening experience with a Ryan Allen and His Extra Arms sense of manic exuberance but also accentuates a vocal delivery perversity that falls somewhere equidistant between Mark E. Smith and Alex Ounsworth.

Perfectly weird. Perfect alt. jangle and undoubtedly the album of the year so far for those who can stomach the genre at its’ most idiosyncratic.

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