7.7/10
It was always going to be, and has so far been a hard feat trying to capture something as great as So So Modern’s live shows on an album. So in a stroke of GENIUS (and due to fortunate circumstances), Crude Futures was recorded LIVE. My god that has paid off.

While Friendly Fires was clunky at times, there is a synergy in Crude Futures that has almost matched the level of interest and energy that people have come to expect from their live shows. It’s like they have finally found the way to slip between the live and the recorded and still keep it rad in both – The So So Megatron is oooon! While it’s not completely on-par, it showcases So So as a band that has developed into a complex BEAST.

Every little bit of this album seems to have been thought about, and not just the songs but the album artwork and title as well. The title Crude Futures fits in so freakin’ well with the So So Modern ethos. The idea of utopias/dystopias, the future and a sense of urgency about the life we are living seem to be ingrained into their songs both lyrically and musically. Matched with John Lake’s artwork (which mixes surrealism with a documentary approach), So So Modern have made an album that seems to want to FIGHT. Not fight you silly, they are fighting for a FUTURE.

While some people would pass Crude Futures off as self-indulgent in the sense that it is overtly dramatic and border-line wank-on-a-synth, I would say that the album has a sophistication, elegance and maturity about it that previous recordings haven’t had. WELL DONE.

Listen: The Worst Is Yet To Come

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