A decent debut album by this Lisbon based Irish band. Out September 19th on felte.

pôt-pot are Elaine Malone, Sara Leslie,  Mykle “Ollie” Oliver Smith, Joe Armitage and Mark Waldron-Hyden. Whilst they are another very strong Irish band, you cannot hear the Irishness the way you could with recent albums from CMAT, For Those I Love and Nerves. The band that immediately sprung to mind on a first listen was The Raveonettes, which means that really the sound owes a lot to the 1970s New York underground of Lou Reed. You could imagine them being a New York band if you did not know any better.

There is a huge amount of bass driven melody on this album. At its best, it creates strong grooves and atmospheric psych-rock with a touch of krautrock. The limited palette risks getting a little monotonous in places, something they will have to move beyond to make future recordings successful.

Three very strong singles proceeded the album. ’22° halo,’ a reference to an atmospheric phenomenon where the Sun or Moon appears to have a circular halo, is the proper album opener. It is a propulsive creation, opening sharply with some nice harmonies between the singers. ‘Sextape’ is a bit of joke title that stuck, derived from a spontaneous jam. That ability to improvise hints at the deep understanding the band members possess. Their first EP came out in 2020 and they were together before that. Those early releases were much more psychedelic and drone-based works. They have very much refined their use of melody in the years since.

‘WRSW’ was the track that bought them to our attention. It has the most Lou Reed-esque vocal. It possibly outstays its welcome by a minute, but it is very fine before that.

‘Fake Eyes’ is a big change of direction to the earlier tracks. An eerie harmonium drone is joined by some slower paced guitar chords. It is very atmospheric, hinting back more to some of their earlier work. ‘I AM!’ quickly brings the tempo and the groove back. Whilst a little more variety in the vocal style would be welcomed across the album the level spoken style here works very effectively against the music. ‘Can’t Handle It’ might be my favourite track with an almost Western/cowboy tinge to it.

I enjoyed this album. It speaks to a lot of potential. It will be interesting to see where they go next.