Post-rock
Self-released · 10 July 2026
«Mouth Of The Snake» opens with a dry electronic beat, and Duncan Attwood’s voice comes straight in over it, with none of the long build-ups post-rock usually uses to warm up. It’s the opener of Blueneck’s sixth album, arriving a decade after «The Outpost» even though recording began only a year after that record came out.
What happened in between, Attwood has explained himself: a serious illness at producer Mat Sampson’s home, the pandemic with work split remotely, and a stroke of his own while the vocals were still being finished. The eight tracks are credited to him and Richard Sadler, the partner he’s run the band with for more than twenty years; Sampson produces, mixes and masters them, and the band self-release the record with a limited physical edition through Burning Shed.
The instrumentation is sparse and the piano is never far away. «Return To Cadiz» moves forward over programmed hi-hats and sounds that flutter in the background without ever quite resolving; «Goliath» breaks open with a drum fill straight out of the eighties; «Did You See The Sunrise?» is the track that lifts and fully opens up, and it’s placed second to last.
The reservation is one of form. Six of the eight tracks run between 5:29 and 6:41 and share the same arc: minimal entry, slow build, peak, retreat. Track by track it works; as a whole album, the pattern shows. The one piece that escapes it is «Send No Flowers», a shade over three minutes that closes without asking permission, and with two more exits like that the record would breathe differently.
Rating: 8/10
Text by Marçal Bonastre