The Hole

Neighbour’s Dog began, according to the least disputed version of events, as the noise coming through somebody else’s wall.

The band built its reputation on cramped rooms, damaged speakers and songs that behaved like they had been left alone in a parked car. Their sound sits somewhere between garage rock, grunge and the exact emotional frequency of a wheelie bin falling over at 3:14 in the morning.

The Hole is their fullest statement so far: loud, claustrophobic and strangely catchy. The guitars arrive coated in grit, the bass moves with the determination of something tunnelling under a fence, and the drums sound as though every cymbal owes the drummer money.

This is not misery polished for display. It is frustration with dirt under its nails. The album circles bad flats, worse decisions, dead-end work and the particular shame of being recognised by the staff in a petrol station after midnight.

“Dashboard Fire” is the obvious point of entry, lurching forward on a riff that sounds both triumphant and mechanically unsafe. It turns a minor automotive emergency into an anthem for anybody who has ever watched a warning light come on and responded by increasing the volume. Elsewhere, the record digs deeper, finding bruised melody beneath the distortion and flashes of tenderness beneath several layers of damp denim.

There is a hole at the centre of the album, but the band never tells us whether it is emotional, financial or in the living-room plasterboard. By the final track, all three seem equally likely.

MERINGUE! requested an interview. A man behind the rehearsal-room door shouted, “He’s friendly!”

We were never told whether he meant the dog.