Cancel The Astronauts

Edinburgh's most secretly miserable band is back and this time they bring a full album with them. Following up from the Intervention EP in April, Cancel the Astronauts have worked hard over the past 18 months to bring us their brand new yet-to-be-released album Animal Love Match. The official release date for their debut is set to be the 17th of September.

 From the title-track opener to the final track of defiant regret I Sold My Soul (and This Is All I Got), Animal Love Match is a documentation of everything that love can do to a person, "the things we do to others in it's name, and the places all this madness leads us."

 This record also highlights the maturity of the band as they have worked hard over the past four years, and to come out with tunes of this quality clearly shows they are creating their best music to date, but anyone who listens to Animal Love Match will see the potential of C.T.A, and that they are going to go on to something bigger than what they ever could have imagined four years ago.

The album is variable in style; Intervention is a live favourite due to some flawless synth work while other songs like heavy guitar driven Lekking border on post-rock. However the band have described Promises of Strangers as "the Girls Aloud single that-never-was". Funnily enough this is one of my favourites from the album! Fans of bands such as We Are The Physics will enjoy the free single Making Dynamite as the band delve into the previously uncharted world of Math-Rock and fast paced twitchyness.

However the band also bring their refreshing take on guitar pop which is at the forefront of this album as a couple of the stand-out tracks are some of the best guitar driven pop songs that Cancel The Astronauts have ever produced. Songs such as I See, Uh-Huh and the future single While I Was Sleeping are prime examples of this perfect guitar arrangement.

Evidently, the hard work has paid off as Cancel The Astronauts have gone from one of the best kept secrets in the local scene to the worst kept secret in Scotland. They were chosen to play at the recent GoNORTH showcase event, have shared stages with Frightened Rabbit and have done their time at T in the Park- and I'm sure they would be welcomed back to any of these events.

Animal Love Match is only the beginning for Cancel The Astronauts-it may be the best work they've produced, but that's only so far. It's only a matter of time before the media pick up on their genius way of hiding their depression behind a wall of synth and go on to produce bigger and better music.