By: Jonah Lazar, Staff Writer

Formed by Verity Susman and Matthew Simms, MEMORIALS is an art-pop duo out of Canterbury, England. Their debut record, Memorial Waterslides, won the group a modest following, and from this success they have been on a tour across Europe and North America since the start of this year. The duo released their sophomore album on March 27, titled All Clouds Bring Not Rain. 

All Clouds Bring Not Rain begins with “Life Could Be A Cloud,” a song that feels like a Stereolab reimagining of The Velvet Underground’s indie anthem “After Hours.” “Life Could Be a Cloud” opens with lead singer Verity Susman’s isolated vocals, but quickly builds into an uplifted and joyous buzz of drums, vocal harmonies, and reed instruments. This energy builds into the following track, “Cut Glass Hammer.” Recurring metaphors drawing on cosmic bodies followed by the repetition of the lyric, “nothing is exactly how it feels” gives an impression of a surreal, psychedelic love, untethered from reality.  

But this synthetic energy soon cuts out, replaced by slow strums of a guitar, or perhaps even a mandolin, with Susman’s distinctive vocal taking centre stage in the third track of the album, “I Can’t See a Rainbow.” Through metaphors of being stranded out at sea layered with raw vocals, this song sends a message of hopelessness and emotional vacancy. 

The next few tracks return to the eccentric pace set out by “Cut Glass Hammer,” with frenzied combinations of vocal harmonies, asymmetrical drum loops, and even more synths than before, keeping you on your toes. Right when this energy culminates to an almost unbearable point, they take the foot off the gas and return to the lazed whimsy found earlier in the album, with “Reimagined River.”

This is followed by what I consider the strongest track of the album, “Mediocre Demon,” which defines itself through a funky bassline, brassy, big-band overtones, and drums reminiscent of something by TV Girl. All of this is cut through by a hypnotic vocal drawing on the recurring themes of the ocean, the sky, and the heavenly bodies which are also recurrently present throughout the album.

All Clouds Bring Not Rain was recorded in a barn in the south of France. The rustic, echoed tone produced as a result of this bleeds through in Susman’s vocals in the following few tracks, especially in the second last song of the album, “Wildly Remote.” This track is very reminiscent of Nico, with that characteristically fuzzy production and low-register, droning vocal. The other songs at the tail-end of this album, in particular “Lemon Trees” and “Holy Invisible,” also employ this fuzzy, textured vocal to great effect by splicing it with some of the more experimental sounds from the first few songs of the album.

Overall, the duo’s creative songwriting and Susman’s smooth vocals in All Clouds Bring Not Rain make it a record that you can listen to repeatedly. 

MEMORIALS performed All Clouds Bring Not Rain at The Pearl in Vancouver on May 8, but their tour didn’t stop there. They’ll be on the road in the US, Germany, Italy, and a few stops in between over the next few months. All Clouds Bring Not Rain can also be found on all major streaming platforms.