Album Review: CLOVES - 'Nightmare On Elmfield Road'

CLOVES.General Photo 1 Horizontal.Credit Furmaan Ahmed.jpeg

Made up of electronic layers and unique sounds, 'Nightmare on Elmfield Road' is an exploration of CLOVES’s ‘brain world’.

Each track focuses on a different overwhelming feeling - paranoia, social anxiety, gaslighting - as a representation of spiralling emotions and complex thoughts. In simple terms, it's nothing like anything I’ve ever encountered before.

The concept itself is enough to deem the EP a masterpiece. Every song so perfectly fits the issue it tackles: the chaos of 'Manic', the unsettling screeches of 'Nightmare', the fast changes of 'Screws'. Some tracks adopt a sound so sinister that in parts they slightly resemble the audio of a horror film, perfectly incorporating the pun-tastic title. It all feels so intimately personal, injected with raw and honest lyrics. The lingering heaviness this brings makes 'Nightmare on Elmfield Road' the type of thing you'd listen to when you're alone with your thoughts at three in the morning.

There's a clear identity that exists sonically, too. Every song is filled with so much variety that nothing feels as long as it really is. Minutes feel like seconds when you have Billie Eilish-esque distortions ('Nightmare') proceeding a sample of the iconic rhythm to Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega ('Sicko'). Then, of course, there’s the layers of genius in each individual track. Between CLOVES’s hypnotising vocals, the large range of different background sounds and the electronic composition of it all, you’ve got an album that takes multiple listens to fully appreciate.

One of my own personal highlights from the EP is the moment where all of this raw heaviness is momentarily paused. The 'Interlude' is upbeat to the point of hilarity - it's just such an aggressive juxtaposition to the hard-hitting songs that sandwich it. It tells you exactly what you need to know about 'Nightmare on Elmfield Road': just when you think you have a solid grasp of where things are going to go, you’re hit with a wild-card that proves you don’t, really. Besides the general self-deprecating vibes that coat each song, there’s a general unpredictability to everything that sucks you in and refuses to let you escape until the very end.

So let yourself be taken on a journey into the brain of CLOVES. Delve into every thought and emotion. You certainly won’t regret it.

Words by Caitlin Mincher