The Unit Ama – Toward

There are a number of UK punk festivals on the calendar, and if the brilliant Rebellion Festival is anything to go by, they reinforce what has always been known – that ‘punk’ is the broadest of churches. In fact, when you strip out the ‘punker than you’ police and cartoonish stereotypes, you’ll find as much rock and esoterica in this genre as anything else. Witness the brilliant pop rock shapes of Syteria on one hand, and the inexplicably fantastically quirky Rites of Hadda on the other, both sharing an enthusiastic Rebellion audience. Punk was never a style. It was an enabling mechanism.

Enter The Unit Ama and their angular math-prog-rock-jazz-folk-punk stylings. Not the most productive of musical units, this is the band’s second album in 20 years. If they weren’t in other bands (The Long Lonesome Go, Archipelago, The Horse Loom and more) as well, this would be glacial progress. But you can tell from the immediate awkwardness of this record that this is not going to be rollicking, crowd-pleasing pop music. This is music for your head. 

Opening track Sycamore sets the tone. It’s a brutally chaotic ramble through extraordinary time signatures with a throbbing high register bass riff underpinning crashing and droning guitars. It’s Radiohead at their most self-indulgent, fronted by Ian Curtis. Stirrup is a demented waltz in the same vein.The percussive guitar motif of Collector is the overture to a slab of grinding folk-hardcore that pulses menacingly. The closest you will get to something like something is closing track New Page, which is coiling, droning and Nirvana-esque in its ambition. There are moments of stunning and unexpected beauty in this work (Mary), but mostly it is imploding, asymmetric rock that leaves you confused and bewildered. That’s not a bad thing.

Listening to this album is like your first ever sip of fine whiskey: you have to get through the initial harshness and the shock to appreciate the fine and nuanced flavours underneath. The Unit Ama dare you to like them. If you want your music processed and pre-packed with added colouring and vitamins, this ain’t going to be the one for you, for sure. If you want to immerse yourself in a deep musical experience and are open to the awkward and unexpected, The Unit Ama could be just the thing for you. We like it.

Toward by The Unit Ama is out now on Gringo Records.