All We Are -‘All We Are’ (Double Six/Domino)

There’s an urban legend (probably apocryphal) that at one point in the ’80s, Prince tried to sign the Cocteau Twins to his label Paisley Park. I bring this up, because although Irish-Norweigian-Brazilian trio All We Are have described themselves as being like the Bee Gees on Diazepam, they sound more like a meeting between the finest offerings of Minneapolis and Grangemouth.

Tipped for quite sometime, the trio’s self-titled debut has been anticipated for quite a while and for a debut album it shows a lot of promise, going some considerable way to deliver on the buzz that has been building around them for the last eighteen months. Indeed, the opening salvo of ‘Ebb/Flow;, ‘Stone’ and ‘Feel Safe’ is pretty damn impressive.

It’s not to say that the album goes downhill from here per se – it’s just that it loses a bit of its momentum from then on, and while it picks up at times, overall the magic of the first part of the album doesn’t really extend to the whole. And several plays in, it still feels the same way. In this day and age of people being able to cherrypick the tracks they buy or stream (if they pay for it at all), it’s more important than ever to keep the consistency up.

So a promising debut, then, if not amazing.

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All We Are is out now on Double Six/Domino

All We Are are a three piece who met at Liverpool University. They are Ireland’s Richard ‘O Flynn (drums, vocals), Norway’s Guro Gikling (bass, vocals) and Brazil’s Luis Santos (guitar, vocals). Having toured with the likes of Jungle, Warpaint and London Grammar, they will release their debut, self-titled album on Domino on February 2, from which the new single ‘Keep Me Alive’ comes from. What’s exciting is to listen to a band who draw on both indie and dance influences, but not in the done-to-death for a generation way that that usually implies.

‘Keep Me Alive’ is a slightly unusual song, and the video, directed by Abbie Stephens, just has to be seen to be believed. It’s a more than just slightly unusual video…

The videos for their two previous singles can be seen below:

The album tracklisting for All We Are is as follows:

1. Intro
2. Ebb/Flow
3. Stone
4. Feel Safe
5. Honey
6. I Wear You
7. Keep Me Alive
8. Go
9. Utmost Good
10. Something About You
11. Life Of Seven