All "post-" genres are fucking stupid. It's true. Sorry to burst the bubble, but someone had to do it. Adding "post" to genres is a lazy — and very music journalist — way to distinguish things that kinda sound similar to other things, but the adjectives and adverbs haven't been codified just yet. You ever hear of a "post-blues" album? No, because people who listen to blues with any sort of conviction or knowledge of history wouldn't be caught dead hyphenating.
Post-punk in particular has had a roaring resurgence in the past couple of years, but many of the contemporary bands associated with that moniker are so different, so out there that narrowly defining them in this way has gotten very boring. While the early 2000s' "post-punk revival" featured a lot of drugged up New York bands playing a seedy (NOT sleazy) brand of indie-drenched cool, none of those bands sounded the same either: only their 2020's copycats do. Now, twenty-some-odd years later, a new crop of posters has popped up, with many of the most well-known acts coming from the semi-birthplace of all things post-, the UK.
Squid, Wet Leg, Shame, Dry Cleaning, Yard Act and Black Country, New Road are just some of the immensely (and some could even say, surprisingly) popular bands who have taken the sneer and brashness of punk and mixed it with a whole host of outside influences. But here's a riddle for ya: how the hell can Black Midi and Fontaines D.C. ever be lumped in the same category?
Out of all of these acts, the most boot-stomping, genre-hopping and aggressive is undoubtedly London's High Vis, who mix so many disparate influences that fine, fine, fiiiiiine, you can consider them…sigh…post-punk. Across two LPs, the band has excelled at blending hardcore's caustic bite — punctuated by lead vocalist Graham Sayle's shouty, scousian vocals — with everything from shoegaze to Madchester, house to goth rock. They must have great record collections.
High Vis's music is energetic, confrontational and naked, and on their latest and third full-length, Guided Tour, the dizzying juxtapositions and approaches are alive and kicking (against the pricks).
Album opener and namesake "Guided Tour" starts with the sound of a car being started up. It feels early, cold, pre-work, and thus, unfortunate. But then the driving drums and a grunge-y bassline burst through, a rhythmic light at the end of the work-week tunnel, an appetizer that introduces the most shimmery guitar you'll hear all year. Soon after, Sayle's gruff, instantly recognizable voice comes in high in the mix, soaring above the music exactly where it should be, where it needs to be. His direct and vulnerable lyrics espouse all that's right and positive with High Vis's music: "You're desperate to feel more / For once in your life / Looking in all the right places / For what you're missing tonight / If you need some help / I'll be your guided tour / The life you wanted and more."
The band — which is rounded out by drummer Edward "Ski" Harper, bassist Jack Muncaster, and guitarists Martin Macnamara and Rob Hammaren — never hides behind the production or pedals, even if this is their cleanest and best produced record, thanks to engineer Stanley Gravett and Canada's very own producer extraordinaire, Jonah Falco. In fact, the polish actually accentuates the dirt, the contrasts made more apparent and thus increasing their impact. "Mind's a Lie" sounds Balearic and ecstatic, the understated bass line, swooning synth waves, and cooed, chopped vocals reminding us that Ibiza probably used to be cool. But it's Sayle's voice that gives it the unwholesome, dangerous edge it deserves. Similarly, the uplifting "Guided Tour" is quickly demolished by the grit and fuzz of follow-up "Drop Me Out," which would have been very welcome on Creation Records… if only Alan McGee had signed more punks and less louts.
"Mind's a Lie," by far the album's best track, is an existential diatribe against the internal and external forces that seek to influence, disparage and deny us ("What's the truth when your minds a lie?"), while "Gone Forever" features an anti-nihilism rallying cry that will undoubtedly be shouted by torrents of fist pumping devotees the world-over: "I don't know what to believe in / But it can't be this / When you're gone, you're gone forever / You won't be fucking missed."
While High Vis's aural and sonic explorations are beyond commendable, the issue that often arises with this kind of songwriting is that the whole approach begins to grow a bit thin, feeling more derivative than experimental; the only through-line is Sayle's voice, which gives the band some consistency. For some, this is probably exactly why they listen to this band's music: it's ever-changing and constantly adapting, and it's certainly never boring. However, after three albums, they still come across as a group trying to decide who they are and what they want to sound like. Their music doesn't need to be repetitive or uniform; this isn't your average "hardcore" band, after all. But listening to Guided Tour, one gets the feeling that these songs could have fit on any of their previous releases, and vice versa. And thanks to this relentless stream of change and stylistic appropriation, it also feels like there's no evolution.
For every desperate, energetic, and/or fantastic track ("Fill the Gap"; "Mob DLA"; "Mind's a Lie"; "Gone Forever"), there is an equally mediocre or uninspired one: the forgettable '90s Brit-pop throwbacks "Feeling Bless" and "Deserve It"; the gothy filler of "Farringdon" and the listless jangle of "Untethered": all of these feel like insta-skips, and try as it might, Sayle's bark — and the impassioned lyrics that come with it — can't save them all.
Guided Tour is not a bad record, but it's not a particularly memorable one. It features some excellent work by a powerful band ("Mind's a Lie" is possibly the best thing they've ever committed to record), while also forcing the listener to sit through some truly bland, unoriginal filler. While Guided Tour may continue their propensity for experimentation, it also presents High Vis as little more than a pastiche-laden band indebted unconditionally to the past. On this Tour, the only thing they're "post-" is originality.