Exit Calm tells us The Future Isn't What It Used To Be with new album

The enigmatic quintet from somewhere oop narf, have been on a hiatus for a couple of years to come back with a refreshing revival album, The Future Isn't What It Used To be.

For those of you remember The Verve glory days of A Storm In Heaven, you'll love this album. It's straight from that era, with the same soundscape soaring guitars that feed off... well, feedback. It is paint-by-numbers northern shoegaze with a 90s edge.

Opening with single Rapture, the band create a long forgotten shoegaze sound in a time where every band is trying to mimic Black Keys. Who themselves are reviving a blues rocks sound from the 70s. Exit Calm do it for the 90s.

To be honest, this sets the tone for the whole album. It gets to a point when one track melts into the other and you barely realise that you've listened to nine different tracks. On the whole, the angst laden lyrics, gruff and aggressive vocals and piercing guitars is a great listen. It won't change your life and probably won't be an album you'll crave to revisit, but you'll enjoy yourself once you have.

Having seen them in a past iteration called Lyca Sleep, they’re fantastic live – they transport you to another dimension where everything is a bit dark, grubby and beautiful. You lose yourself in a cacophony of noise that twist and turns into a psychedelic euphoria. This album is exactly that. It’s not a body of work that you listen to track by track – it combines to take you on a journey.

Exit Calm have been on the live music circuit for years. Now, all of a sudden they're back and they mean business. With a slot at this year's V Festival - it seems that this will be calm before the storm. See what I did there... Taxi!

The haircuts are familiar, the rasping vocals are familiar and the attitude is also familiar for generation Britpop. It’s a concept that is crying out for a revival. How many of us have drunkenly yelled ‘in the sunshiiiii-iane’ with our fingers in the air recently? How many of us have relished in The Stone Roses reunion and salivating at Suede’s reincarnation? Exit Calm may not be the youth comfort blanket – but they do it for a new generation of sex-haired boys and vintage-wearing girls.

Exit Calm is Nicky Smith (vocals), Rob Marshall (Guitars), Simon Lindley (Bass) and Scott Pemberton (Drums).

Six out of ten