Post-punk is increasingly popular in the UK, there’s no doubt about that. Negative Space from London aren’t the ones jumping the bandwagon though, Cruelty is the band’s second album. And it’s a great record, more like a mini-album with its seven tracks. It leaves you wanting more, since several of them – like the jet-fuelled “Theft Utopia” – are over before you know it. It’s out on Drunken Sailor, and their description of the sound as a halfway house between Black Flag and Gang of Four is not entirely off the mark. There’s less of the latter’s restraint than there was on Gestalt from 2017. But fans of fellow Londoners in Hygiene should dig this as well.
