I don't know what astute young listeners call this genre of music. I'm tempted to reach for quietcore, maybe. Whatever it is, this style is one that can be traced back to Spirit of Eden-era Talk Talk, and then onwards to releases from The Sea and Cake, Unrest, Yo La Tengo, and so on. It's music where the spaces between notes seem as important as those being struck, and where there's a jazz-inspired sense of collaboration, and yet a progressive-rooted premium on precise musicianship. Modern Nature do this style of music so very well that we're at the point where, for a listener like me at least, a new record from this quartet is going to be a highlight of the year.
And, yeah, The Heat Warps is not only an instant addition to my Top 10 Albums of 2025 list, but quite possibly the band's warmest record to date. "Pharaoh", a Video of the Week here, kicks things off with a mid-tempo ramble, even as "Glance" surprises with a sense of agitation. As the guitars ping and clang against each other, the vocals maintain a seeming calm that keeps things grounded. That tension being held in check is what gives the song some heft. Elsewhere, the longer "Source" is built upon the sort of interplay that anchored the best records from the British folk rock boom of decades past, even as the song has the kind of progression that The Verve would have killed for. The number builds in such as a way that it's nearly hypnotic, and for anyone with even a little patience, a tune like this, so seemingly simple, can transfix in its own way just as much as some so-called rock banger. Modern Nature, as always, retain this variety of immediacy in their material that keeps this stuff from being too rarefied, with this song's refrain of "there's me standing in the riot" anchoring this to the grim present in a spectacular fashion.
This is the first Modern Nature record as a four-piece, and while Jack Cooper still provides the vision that this group is chasing, there's a real sense of interplay and conversation between the instruments of the four members of this band: Jack Cooper (guitar, organ, vocals), Tara Cunningham (guitar, vocals), Jeff Tobias (bass, vocals), and Jim Wallis (drums, percussion, dulcimer). For example, "Zoology", a highlight on The Heat Warps, is an airy delight, a post-rock lullaby that showcases the vital role each of the four plays in what's happening here. Numbers such as that one give The Heat Warps a sound that's like that of a recording of a live performance. "Totality", the epic closer here, places the vocals forward in the mix. The song unfurls atop languid guitar-lines and deliberate percussion, until it finds release in that big chorus. There's a quiet majesty here that is really something, and the track is so unassumingly cool that I find myself vibing off it like the Deadheads parsing licks who I may have once ridiculed. But I get it; music like this can open up a unique space, one where it feels like something magical is transpiring, and we're lucky to even hear it. And never have Modern Nature done that more than on the best selections on The Heat Warps. Highly recommended, obviously.
The Heat Warps by Modern Nature is out this week via Bella Union. Details below too.
[Photo: Michael Stasiak]