Sirs

Unapologetically concise and direct, Sirs carries an innocent, volatile air, balancing tension and weight with a broad spectrum of colour. Self-recorded in Pete’s basement with the majority of the album put down first take, then tweaked and mixed over the following month, it’s an immediate and immensely detailed recording that retains freshness and still has the ability to jolt and surprise many listens on. Lyrically cryptic but somehow eloquent, the band conjures uncertain, provocative imagery by combination of music, words and sheer gravity of intent – one critic described their sound as ‘insightfully inarticulate and emotionally deafening’.

Dynamic, stunningly arranged, and prone to fly off at unpredicatable angles, Sirs posseses a gnarled beauty very much Welcome’s own; spiked shards of guitar offset against warm, bittersweet West Coast tinged melodies, underpinned by a driving, articulate rhythm section. At times cracked and claustrophobic, at others open, inviting or euphoric, Welcome cram more ideas into Sirs brief time-span than many bands manage to purvey in their entire career.