- Mere Women’s second record is called Your Town, and with song names like Home and Our Street you might think it’s another album of jangly guitar music littered with references to familiar suburbs. But the places in Your Town are more imagined and constructed; it’s an album that recalls the spaces you make for people inside your heart, the somewhere you wish you were, or a place you can never go back to.
First track Moon Creeper introduces these themes of isolation, and voyeurism, full of longing and blatant desire, with sparse, repeated vocals, scattered drums and ragged guitar lines. Most of this album seems designed to keep you off balance: discord and discomfort create jagged lines through every song. All the tracks on this record seems to have at least four or five distinct parts, melodies and drum beats change constantly, but it’s all held together by Amy Wilson’s strident vocal. She has the kind of voice that can carry lyrics like “will you think of me when I’m cold and pale” with no hint of self-pity, and make “you will eventually forget my face, forget me” sound more like a threat than a lament.
Album highlight and single Heave Ho starts off heavy and laboured, with Wilson’s voice sounding part Corrine Tucker, part Tori Amos and part drill sergeant, vulnerable but dangerous, but then guitars cut out and this strange little piece of synth comes in in the middle of the song, swirling and cascading the whole thing into madness until the rest of the instruments come back in stronger than ever, bringing the song home in a totally controlled frenzy.
They do this tension cutting and building thing effortless throughout the record, especially on Know You Well and Hands & Face, the latter in particular demanding excitement and attention with its horror-movie synth and sinister bass line.

The guitar work by Flyn Mckinnirey is also pretty special; the way the lead lines on songs like Golden and Our Street kind-of-but-not-really follow the vocal makes the sound so much more engaging. This guitar not only helps create the feeling of dissent that makes up the backbone of Your Town but also gives the listener so many strong melodies to hold on to, and is a big part of what makes this record such an enjoyable challenge.

- Madeleine Laing.