An Awesome Wave

From the opening "Intro", followed by Ripe and Ruin (previously known to most as Tesselate') a seemingly haunting start to the album is followed by a burst of immaculately written pop, skeletal rock and even a verge on dance start to break through - with influences from hip hop through to Gregorian chants and rounds, Alt-J draw influence from any corner of music they see fit.

The result of which is an immaculately crafted album, but here's the key point. This is only the beginning.

That doesn't mean the album should be considered as anything less than what it is (which to be precise is a truly astounding piece of work for an established artist, let alone a debut album) but it feels at many points as if this is simply the start for them, the cleaned up set of demo tracks that have been trawled across gig venues across the country strung together in to a beautifully chaotic album.

Expect big things from this album and you won't be disappointed, but post listening you'll be left wanting so much more from them in the future that this will simply be marked by most as the start of something beautiful.

I was advised to purchase this album on the recommendation I might like it. I'm a bit out of touch where music is concerned but I thought I'd take the risk and buy the album without hearing a song.

I was not disappointed. It's really, very, very good and thoroughly worth your hard earned cash.

Imagine Radiohead jumping into bed with Gomez, they start to get it on but there is some sort of distracting dubstep somewhere in the distance.However they continue, regardless of the moody beats and conceive a child.

The resultant offspring would sound like Awesome Wave...and that's a good thing. A very, very good thing.