THE REDUCTORS
GRAPHIC NOVEL
With their references to 60s garage, 70s punk, 80s gloom pop and everything in between, The Reductors really should be an anachronism. Their second album, Graphic Novel, proves they’re anything but.
Graphic Novel…is a monochrome edifice of greatness, the sun behind it filtering prismatic light through its brutalist edges.
When the guitars kick in on opening track, ‘Identity’, towering over the nagging tug of the opening notes, it’s like The Reductors had been in the studio with Sandy Pearlman. The vocals on ‘Obscuro’ conjure up the grumpy ghost of Mark E Smith. The signature riff on ‘Mass’ is pure Killing Joke.
And so it goes on. To the extent that Graphic Novel and The Reductors themselves really shouldn’t work. What they do has been done before. Do we really need to hear it all over again? From lesser imitators, definitely not. But lesser and imitators are not in The Reductors’ playbook. Led by frontman and guitarist, Luke Nixon, a musician who’s never been afraid to wear his musical heart on his well-worn sleeve, The Reductors are an essential 21st-Century phenomenon. The lyrical content on Graphic Novel plumbs the death of a society eaten alive by capitalism; takes on the eternal human need for empathy in a world that only runs on stereotypes; gets to grips with body image and neurodivergence — all stuff that has been done before — but these remain essential issues.
In the 70s and 80s we cleverly mithered about Big Brother watching us, and artists like Paul Weller made veiled references to Orwell while also bemoaning the demise of the British empire. He meant well, but work like his is of the times and can’t possibly survive the now. Not when we have Silicone Valley deliberately getting us hooked on ‘social’ systems that track our every move, our every word. Weller could never have seen empire through the current lens, as we assess the economic and actual genocide committed in the name of kings and queens and increasingly began to demand reparations.
Nixon and The Reductors see all of this clearly and have distilled it into 10 demandingly potent tracks that make an album as sharp as a row of fencing spikes, as insistently beautiful as the flower that pushes through a crack in the pavement. These songs are thorny and will hurt you if you get too close to them, but it’s the kind of pain we need right now. Graphic Novel is an album that reminds you that you’re alive, that the hurt is real, but that the hurt offsets joy. You see, The Reductors, amongst many other things, are experts at light and shade.
The songs on Graphic Novel are either the soundtrack to the end of the world, or a call to action before it’s too late. How you take them is up to you, but The Reductors’ second album, far from being their sophomore slump, is a monochrome edifice of greatness, the sun behind it filtering prismatic light through its brutalist edges.
Speaking about Graphic Novel, Nixon said, “I hope that other neurodivergent people listen to this album and feel assured they are right about the fact that the world is messed up.” He’s a modest man and, like us all, sees the world through his own prism. Trust me, Graphic Novel is an album for all the people.
Graphic Novel is released on 1 November on the Thought System label.
Experience The Reductors live at the Milk bar on 16 November 2024 with Rothko, Sugar Wife and Moody Alice. Tickets here.
