Dutch Uncles - Cadenza (Memphis Industries)

Ever since the release of 'Fragrant', Mancunians Dutch Uncles (who are neither Dutch nor your uncles in case you were wondering!) established themselves as the band “outside the box” of conventional music. I mean, it’s a song about releasing body odour to members of the same genetic family. You might as well create a National Geographic nature mating documentary featuring the Fritzl family. But no, Dutch Uncles aren’t that tasteless.

Dutch Uncles are a timeless band. They verge on pure 90’s pastiche through the infectiously catchy, almost teetering on Bloc Party’s One More Chance juggling dance stepped pianos of Cadenza, but rather than stay there, they move onto the wonderfully dramatic and “wacky” bass punch of 'Fragrance' placing them on terms with Sparks in a mental institution. Then we get to 'x-o' which shares the same complicated bi-polar time signatures and the skittering fragmented guitars nearing them to the next Everything Everything, but not before 'Dressage' places us right onto the set of Looney Toon’s featuring Public Image Limited as Peter Broadhead’s voice rockets from his usual Alexis Taylor-esque soulful falsetto to the “whoop” of a senile Morrissey.

But aside from the magnificent melodrama, there’s a presence of contemplation that is filled with an atmosphere of solemnity. In 'OCDUC', which sounds like the soundtrack to Matt Damon sitting on a desk before going all crazy in a blackboard, Broadhead thinks: “Life glowing disease, you don’t play me, my toes are faint, I’m so in place,” 'Dolli' involves chants of “I’m a bird,” one of the more tranquil times during the album but only in a Shutter Island Leo Di’Caprio sitting in the asylum grounds tranquil.

In this sense, Dutch Uncles like to take what we regard as normal and to shatter and distort them beyond comprehension. 'Orval', with its cosmic and radiant beginnings would be the perfect relaxation song were it not for the overdriven funk of a LSD overdosed Stevie Wonder that soon takes over. Ca-den-za: an elaborate flourish or showy solo passage. Dutch Uncles match this description perfectly.