With their introductory mini-album ‘Comfortably Swell’, Brighton’s Penelope Isles amassed years of writing and performing, whether as a band or separately, and channeled it into beautifully textured and evidently considered art.
Upon following up the excellent album, the group have returned with a choice rarity from guitarist and vocalist Jack Wolter’s past, when under his lo-fi moniker Cubzoa. ‘Gnarbone‘ presents the marked development of a group, and their new found ability to express their atmospheric live qualities on record.
The track is a mass of contrasting emotion. Pretty guitar lines build into an intense, driving force that carries the track into Wolter’s fragile, sweet coos that bathe under morphing reverberation. In delivering that uncompromising intensity, much like when performing personal live favourite ‘Your Gold Teeth‘, the group have discovered another unique and intriguing element to their personality as a whole.
When looking at their work from a progressive perspective, here stand a band that’s slow-burning growth is making them an even more interesting proposition. By showing their workings out on record and in a live setting, Penelope Isles are giving their music a warmth and realness that is all to easily erased for anxiety of incompleteness. Neither we nor they know where they are headed next, and it’s all the more exciting for it.