Punch Card

This album has been added to 2 public lists:

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  2026: Underground Frequencies & Modern Nocturnes

  Adelino Valente

  Typo loving misfits Formal Sppeedwear produce angular, wonky indie pop that playfully eschews pattern and structure. Quite frankly, they’re a glorious mess, but one that has design at its centre. Across their debut album’s 12 tracks, the Stoke-on-Trent trio turn post-punk, synth-pop and avant-garde experimentation into something playful, restless and surprisingly danceable. It’s music that sounds carefully constructed and slightly out of control at exactly the same time. They are oxymoronic, disorientating, and delightful in equal measure, but it’s also an annoying record. The frantic immediacy of Punch Card is also partially its downfall as there’s no respite from their quirky onslaught which can often get too much.

  Formal Sppeedwear’s 2024 self-titled EP introduced a band indebted to the sounds of Japan, DEVO, and Speaking in Tongues-era Talking Heads with elastic basslines, Bowie-esque cut-up technique lyrics, all undercut with a ferocious groove. Punch Card takes those same ingredients and gives them considerably more room to mutate and breathe. Rather than settling into a single aesthetic and rhythm, the album keeps shifting its centre of gravity – sometimes pleasingly, often frustratingly. A familiar groove can suddenly acquire an awkward guitar figure; a pop melody might be interrupted by some obtuse electronic texture; a seemingly straightforward song can veer somewhere considerably more peculiar. It’ll keep you on your toes, for sure, as each song vies for your focus like an attention starved child.

  from beatsperminute.com

• 

  2026

  David Thorley