{"id":4151,"date":"2016-09-22T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-microwave-much-love\/"},"modified":"2019-05-13T20:51:38","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T19:51:38","slug":"album-review-microwave-much-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-microwave-much-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Microwave &#8211; Much Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>img class=&#8221;alignleft&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/cb94019939c92040333d78681264e40b\/tumblr_oczgq9lfGb1r8no6so3_r1_1280.jpg&#8221; width=&#8221;250em&#8221; \/>While there\u2019s very little \u2018new\u2019 in music, clever and expressive bands can still find new ways to make their mark. It\u2019s a concept well understood by Atlanta\u2019s <b>Microwave<\/b> and implemented wonderfully on their genre-hopping second album, <i>\u2018Much Love\u2019<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, <i> \u2018Much Love\u2019<\/i> exists in a place where genre is almost irrelevant, sitting legs splayed and reclining all over what we would call <i>\u2018alternative\u2019<\/i> music. There\u2019s flashes of grunge, punk, post-hardcore, post-punk and a hundred other sub-genres, yet <b>Microwave<\/b> live by their own rules, pinching and pillaging to make an album that hops around as much as mischievous silver-stealing magpie.<\/p>\n<p><!-- more --><\/p>\n<p>Remarkably, it hangs together beautifully, consistently holding your attention like an episodic cliff-hanger in your favourite television drama. Indeed, <i>\u2018Much Love\u2019<\/i> will have you frequently scratching your head as you try and puzzle out how <b>Microwave<\/b> got from Point A to Point B with such ease.<\/p>\n<p>Standouts are numerous, but it\u2019s the little flashes that really grab you by the throat; the wigged-out riff on <i>\u2018Lighterless\u2019<\/i>; the half-buried screamed vocals on <i>\u2018Bury\u2019<\/i>; the juxtaposition of irreverent wallet-losing lyrics and breezy, whimsical Shins-lite introduction to <i>\u2018Neighbours\u2019<\/i>. There are so many outstanding little moments you could probably repackage all of them in a different order and still come up with a killer album, such is the frequency and quality of these mini victories.<\/p>\n<p>Occasionally, <b>Microwave<\/b> play it (relatively) straight to great effect too. The one-two of <i>\u2018Drown\u2019<\/i> and <i>\u2018Vomit\u2019<\/i> works as the perfect centrepiece of the album; one tempered and restrained but lyrically poetic, the other building to a furiously cataclysmic crescendo that could well catch you off guard. In fact, the only downer on a consistently excellent album is <i> \u2018Roaches<\/i>, an uninspired opener that does little to show <b>Microwave<\/b> at their freewheeling best.<\/p>\n<p>4\/5<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2019Much Love\u2019<\/em> by <strong>Microwave<\/strong>is out on 30 September on <b>SideOneDummy Records<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Microwave<\/strong> links: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/microwavetheband\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>|<a href=\"\/\/twitter.com\/microwaveatl%E2%80%9D\">Twitter<\/a>|<a href=\"\/\/microwavetheband.bandcamp.com\/%E2%80%9D\">Bandcamp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Words by Rob Mair (<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/BobNightMair\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@BobNightMair<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>img class=&#8221;alignleft&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/cb94019939c92040333d78681264e40b\/tumblr_oczgq9lfGb1r8no6so3_r1_1280.jpg&#8221; width=&#8221;250em&#8221; \/>While there\u2019s very little \u2018new\u2019 in music, clever and expressive bands can still find new ways to make their mark. It\u2019s a concept well understood by Atlanta\u2019s Microwave and implemented wonderfully on their genre-hopping second album, \u2018Much Love\u2019. In fact, \u2018Much Love\u2019 exists in a place where genre is almost irrelevant, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":15758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[454,2018,15022,723],"class_list":["post-4151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-microwave","tag-much-love","tag-rob-mair","tag-sideonedummy-records"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Review: Microwave - Much Love - Already Heard Staging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"img class=&quot;alignleft&quot; src=&quot;https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/cb94019939c92040333d78681264e40b\/tumblr_oczgq9lfGb1r8no6so3_r1_1280.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250em&quot; \/&gt;While\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review: Microwave - 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