29 April 2024 - 0 Comments

Critical Mass is the highly anticipated fourth album from Beat Rhythm Fashion. Containing, eleven new songs including the singles No Wonder and World View. It sees the band further focusing their “outside-observer” view on the machinations of the world.

The album was recorded against the backdrop of a worldwide pandemic, lockdowns, difficult Wi-Fi, and the time and energy drain of work/life/responsibilities and obstacles. The band would not be stopped, and the end result is a strong, well-rounded album of focused songs encapsulating the otherworldly beauty that has been BRF’s trademark.

The band make no concessions in their new work. It is intimate, personal and heartfelt, contemplating four decades of a changing-but-unchanging world landscape, encased in BRF's trademark ethereal, mesmeric, melodic, and beautiful music.

BRF still pulls no punches, takes no prisoners, and in an era of watching what you say, it’s a blast of fresh air to hear the group in full flight.

Critical Mass follows 2019 album Tenterhook, which was the band’s first new material in 35 years. The group had taken an indefinite break after their 1981-82 classic trilogy of 7-inch singles including the now iconic Turn of the Century (Collated on 2007's Bring Real Freedom CD). The band re-emerged in 2019 picking up as if no time had passed and continued channelling their ahead-of-its- time melodic postpunk/proto-shoegaze/dreampop with class and style.

They supported the release of Tenterhook with a highly successful New Zealand tour playing to enthralled audiences. Afterwards, the three returned to their bases in the outer reaches of Wellington, Australia, and Japan to work on a follow-up.

The album title - multilayered
"Critical Mass" – to reach a breaking point/a point of propulsion to another place or state.
"The Critical Masses" –, a mindset of our modern world, cancel-culture, lynch mobs, and social justice. The removal of subtlety and shade from our world view. The “Critique” of our world by us. “The Critics”, critiquing us. "Mass”, in religion. The multi-layered and complex world we live in now.

Photo Credit: Manan Fredriksson

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