Smote + Sonar// Radar Friday 20 March £15 adv The Big Difference LE1 5YP

Name: Smote + Sonar// Radar Friday 20 March £15 adv The Big Difference LE1 5YP
Start: 2026-03-20T19:30:00+00:00
Location: The Big Difference

Schedule

Fri, 20 Mar, 2026 at 07:30 pm

UTC+00:00

Location

The Big Difference | Leicester, EN

Rocket Recordings in the area
Lee Fisher review
Their shows this year in particular have been planet-smashing, synapse-rearranging mini apocalypses, especially when they proved a hard act for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs to follow at the Star & Shadow in the spring. Since then, line-ups have expanded (especially a fertile series of collaborations with One Leg One Eye and the addition of Laura / Late Girl on viola and synths for the live shows) and the stages have got bigger and here we are with the fourth album for Rocket, Songs From The Free House.
This time out, Daniel Foggin worked with a producer for the first time – Blank Studio ninja Sam Grant – and Songs From The Free House features vocals from live Smoter Sally Mason and Lankum / One Leg’s Ian Lynch on pipes. The album is five daunting, almost oppressively heavy tracks, but there’s a lot more going on than just Lovecraftian heft. There are subtleties and textures, electronics and sound effects. Opener The Cotter is pure soundtrack build up (if you must, imagine a dead spaceship emerging from behind a scorched planet or something), a flute trill leading us into a magnificent riff and circling thudding drums at about the 4 minute mark, before it all collapses into a mess of static and blown amps at the end. The Lynton Wyrm adds chanting, an almost prog structure and a particularly eldritch folk horror vibe. The shortest song here, Snodgerss, seems almost slight by comparison (and possibly a little over-fluted) but ends with a properly bludgeoning riff, some excellent feedback howls and monstrous drums. All of which serves as a breather before the closing double whammy. Chambers is a slow, stately procession from flute and electronics to a kinda sombre hymnal before a solitary guitar figure leads into Wynne, which continues in a similar vein until it grinds to a stuttering tape-jam halt midway then comes back hard, ending up sounding almost like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, if Godspeed You! Black Emperor had more doom in their souls.
Songs From The Free House is a really magnificent record, maybe their best yet, and goes some way towards capturing their astonishing live performances, and is further proof that Smote really are increasingly special.