Lebatol / Planet Brain – Split

So, a split album! This is a new one on me. To my shame I don't own any split records at all, no, not even an EP, and so it seems like a bit of an oddity to me. This particular record is a union between British band Lebatol and Italian counterparts Planet Brain. The two bands sound like a good match for one another here, both peddling what is frequently gloopy, ethereal rock. There isn't a big split of national sounds on here - in fact at times, the match of the two bands is so good you'll sometimes have to check which one you're listening to if you shuffle the songs. In fact, the closeness of the resemblance between these two bands is perhaps a little too major for their own good - if they'd had a bit more space between them, their tracks might have played off one another that bit more successfully, whereas sometimes Split doesn't really feel like a split album at all. Nevertheless, these are good songs, albeit never quite outstanding. Probably the strongest tracks are put in by Planet Brain, who occupy the first half. "Jupiter Completes Its Orbit" and the "The Fog Inbetween" in particular are among the best on offer here. It's the Italian band's songs which tender to be the longer and more ambitious ones, even if their song "Mirror 7" doesn't show them at their best.On the Lebatol side of things, proceedings are a bit more angular and a bit less spacey, with shoutier vocals. The main weirdness here is the thoroughly odd track titles, from the bizarre "Kids of Today - Cabbage Attaching" to the following "Peek a Boo Youfucksyou". The songs don't match up to the interest of their titles however, as Lebatol largely put out pretty uninspiring rock cuts on their side of the record, failing to carry the increasingly impressive momentum that the Italians had built up across their five tracks.Right down to its lovely cover, Split is designed as a completely 50/50 arrangement between these two bands. But in the quality stakes, the tracklisting is dominated by Planet Brain. The clincher is that despite this disparity in quality, neither band presents enough of an argument to make Split as a whole a particularly appealing purchase.

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