Underground Railroad - White Night Stand

Underground Railroad are intense. Really intense. New album White Night Stand finds the band reveling in rough, fuzzy guitar and an overwhelming wall of grunge influences - the music coming like physical punches to the body. The 16th of June sees them hitting London's Barfly and going by the ambitious, immensely involving sound the band have landed on here, it's not one you'll want to miss.

The band's singer Raphael is spot on when describing the album, 'I was writing about all these dark bars in London, the weirdness of meeting new people and not understanding someone, or how they function. It's a night-time album, definitely.' - That darkness, that pitch black night-time quality, it suffuses every song tight in its grip, making for a chilling, but utterly enchanting listening experience.

8 Millimetres gets things off to a cracking start, a perfect emblem of the dour gloominess that this album situates itself in. At times coming across like a villainous, mirror image Oasis or Charlatans, when Underground Railroad rock, they rock hard.

Equally though, many of the songs present themselves as far more shifty-natured - the choruses and melodies are the, for sure; but they seem elusive, slippery, hard to pin down. White Night Stand is an album that slowly works itself out, like it's waking up with the most epic of whiskey induced hangovers on a Sunday.

And for all the grim overtones, there's also moments of surprising playfulness, like The Black Widow, which shimmys over with an almost burlesque cheeky wink or two. On the whole though, the album errs towards a more lush, involving sound, epitomised on the excellent The Orchid's Curse - expanses of noise befitting the band's involvement with Bjork and Massive Attack collaborator Paul Walton.

With its soundscapes on one hand, and the thunderous explosions of straight guitar tracks like Yellowsuit on the other - the album reaches its pinnacle on those songs that combine both elements. Step forward Russian Doll and Ginkgo Biloba. It's here that the band work in more clinical electronic elements, positioning themselves more towards the likes of Radiohead and Friendly Fires - fully realising the ambition and immense capability that this album is so steeped in.

From subtle to right there in your face, White Night Stand is a thing of so many pieces that each track in many ways feels like a miniature album of its own. The versatility here really does speak for itself.

White Night Stand is released on the 13th June. The double A-side single Ginko Biloba / Lucky Duck is out now.