Inside the Rose album cover
Inside the Rose

These New Puritans

2019
Infectious Music

Nothing special about being a hybrid or open-minded, but These New Puritans really push the limits on “Where in the world do we file this one?” In one song, I heard bits of Nick Cave, Prefab Sprout, Talk Talk, Modern English, and The The. The Barnett brothers, Jack and George, don’t much like loud guitars, but they like everything else. This has the well-executed feeling of a Scott Walker album, with slightly less portentous outcomes. What they remind me most of is the spate of dark Eighties English albums that had just the right levels of melancholy and motion. A little sad but not suicidal, and plenty of musical detail.

Sasha Frere-Jones

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