“It’s easy undercover. Hiding away.”

Sometimes a band does something to you that makes you feel like you have felt the most wonderful feeling ever in life. When you hear this band or a specific song, everything you feel is heightened. You cannot control what your limbs do and all that floats around your head. You fall out of yourself and you find something else to sink so deep into. It’s like being in love, but without the nagging. It is a sense of freedom and feeling utterly content with your surroundings. I first felt this way when I first heard A Forest by The Cure. How that song makes me feel, I compare to most bands/singers. If I don’t feel this way when I listen to something, I won’t be a fan. However, sometimes my affections are delayed. It all depends. How I feel about Warpaint, well, you know how I feel about them. Everything they make me feel is EXACTLY how I felt the first time I heard A Forest. Every single time I play Warpaint my whole frame of mind changes. It is almost like meditating in a way. I don’t know what the exact word is for how I feel; but it truly is like being in a euphoric state. Warpaint have had this reign over me since 2009, I know it won’t go away. Yet, could I ever feel this way about a band again? YES. In short, YES. Late 2010 I heard a song called Creeping. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but every so often I’d listen to it and just feel something I couldn’t put into words. Then I delved deeper into the band, and it became much like how I feel about Warpaint. By “much like” I mean EXACTLY the same.

2:54 make me sway, shut my eyes and go some place where another could never take me. I’ve been waiting for their debut record for SO long. I think this proves just how patient I am. My love for my favourite musical siblings (best siblings in music) goes beyond. To even try put into words how much I love their debut record is going to mentally exhaust me. It’s cool because I’ve had hardly any sleep, and when that happens I have an outburst. I have no idea how I function most of the time. I’ll try to write this in a way that makes sense. It won’t though.

Their debut record sounds like something a band that have been going decades would create. The production is so bloody perfect. Everything. The bass, the drums, the guitar, the vocals. All of it. It is just like a chunk of Heave echoing in your ears, making your bones tremble and shake. You find yourself slipping into some strange trance as you listen to this album. Part of you wants to stay still, the other part of you seems to think jolting your body is the best way to go about this. Do what you want.

This record will make you happy. It’ll make you aroused. Your body will move, your will nod your head in a way that may cause a headache afterwards. You will feel every beat in every song. You just cannot sit still. There is something extremely special about this record. It has a haunting feel to it that just sounds so powerful and beautiful. For every nightmare you have, there is a dream waiting to come out from it. From every demon you have to chase away, something good will eventually happen after the fight, This record is like a symbol of this. It’s something so truly special, I really cannot express it enough. I’m going to call it as DEBUT record of the year. There’s no other way of putting it. It’s on a different level to everything out now, which is probably why it’ll be overlooked. Dear Sod’s Law, kindly piss off.

2:54 have this way of making you feel as if you are leaving your body as you listen to them. When the record ends, the only way to deal with the harsh reality is to keep playing the record. I spent most of today travelling from Birmingham back to my mum’s (Isle of Man, sadly.) I had the album on repeat. Everything just felt better. I’m trying my hardest to write this in a way that isn’t personal, but I can sense I am about to fuck up soon. Although I am trying to do this, I hold a lot of sentimental value to the album. Easy Undercover is lyrically my favourite, probably because it sums up how I feel right now. “If you go, you will never know.” I am terribly good at leaving something and never finding out. I just adore the album.

When you wait for so long, you sometimes become a bit dubious and wonder if it’ll be worth waiting for. The impression a debut record leaves will always be greater than any other. A false start can fuck it up forever. Obviously 2:54 have gone beyond all expectations. Every song has creepy riffs and haunting vocals that are enough to make you want to start your own band. (I really want to start a Garage rock tribute band of the Backstreet Boys and call ourselves Alleyway Whores..anyone?!)

They have a hold on you that you are fully okay with. To let go or to even turn a blind eye to 2:54 would be utterly foolish. They really do deserve to be bloody huge. I have a feeling it is going to be how I listen to Warpaint- an utterly sacred experience.

I could easily have summed all of this up by saying it is brilliant, but when you know a band have put their all into something- then you must do the same in return. This is an extremely atmospheric record that will cover you in goose-bumps, and for every part of you that you feel is lost- you will find it in this record. Their debut record has the darkness of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, the eerie feel that is found in Seventeen Seconds by The Cure and the power of sending you deep into another universe much like Warpaint. Put that all together and you have something truly remarkable and something you must treasure. Colette’s vocals remind me of Siouxsie Sioux. The way she lingers on every word, and sings with such passion really does place a firm hold around your heart.

If you buy this record, your collection will look a billion times sexier.