It’s always very strange reviewing an album when you know its creators are releasing it as an endnote to their career. In the case of run, WALK! the frustration usually accompanying such records is all the greater, and not just because it is their long awaited debut full-length. If this, confusingly titled, album is anything to go by then this is, or rather was, a band with something special in them.
That is not to say that the album (also known as “Health” for those not fluent in symbolism) is not special. For the entirety of the (all too brief) run time of this album it is hard not to stay hooked. Whether it is the enticing subtleties of the introduction at the beginning of the album or the intricacies of closer 'Under a Rock', run, WALK! know how to keep listeners interested. Theirs may not be the most original noise rock template but it is one of the most enjoyably laid out records that a British band has produced in a long time. Utilising a rare mastery of dynamic control, run, WALK! have created a record that not only features the strongest track of their career but that also flows perfectly. To put it a more simplistic way, the really noisy bits are in all the right places!
The fact that run, WALK! are capable of such huge walls of sound with only two members should come as no surprise. After all, everyone knows that Lightning Bolt have been the noisiest thing on the planet for nearly twenty years now. What is more surprising is the sheer range of sounds that Matt Pickering-Copley gets out of his bass. If you didn’t know better you’d think that this band was at least a three piece with at least one guitar at some points. Meanwhile, drummer Tom Clements is the sort of hyperactive drummer that math rock fans will fall for in a flash.
There’s not much point in banging on about the brilliance of this album for long. The sad fact is that it is both the beginning and the end of run, WALK!’s career proper and, even more depressingly, it is likely to be heard only by a tiny fraction of people. If you have any sense of justice in you (and you like really noisy rock records) then you will buy this album because run, WALK! have proved themselves too good here to be let go without at least some recognition of their talents.
"Health" is out on July 16th via Holy Roar. run, WALK! play their last ever show at 2000trees Festival this weekend. We’ll be there. Will you?
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