It’s virtually impossible to make it through Negative Liberty, the second full-length by five-piece instrumentalists The Winchester Club, without a Godspeed You! Black Emperor comparison coming up somewhere along the line. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, as there are certainly worse bands out there to take inspiration from, and to their credit, The Winchester Club put a particularly British grayness into the mood of the five component tracks of Negative Liberty, and they don’t sound like they’re ripping anyone off, but the influence is there and is fairly prominent. That said, the sprawl of the opening three cuts on Negative Liberty – which encompasses 40 of the album’s total 51 minutes – is bound to be driven by the various personalities of the players involved, and it is. That, coupled with the two-guitar/two-bass, xylophone-inclusive arrangements The Winchester Club have on offer, indicates that the push of a song like “R.D. Laing (Little Chemical Straightjackets)” isn’t so much to exorcise influences as to explore a sonic space. Other tracks, working in a scope that’s impressive despite being largely consistent atmospherically, follow suit, and Negative Liberty proves more than a collection of aimless instrumental jams or extended builds.

By way of an example, opener “Fuck You Buddy” reaches its apex approximately halfway through its 12:58 runtime, and the last five and a half minutes of the song are more of a contemplative investigation of the after-effects of that apex. Xylophone notes launch the track and album, but it soon takes on a different live, incorporating a Londoner’s melancholy in its striking bass work from Harry Armstrong (also guitar/vocals in End of Level Boss) and/or Elana Jane, both of whom are credited in the album’s liner. The latter also shares xylophone duties with drummer Tim Spear, who founded The Winchester Club along with guitarist and Chineseburn bandmate Jerry Deeney and guitarist Jonathan Morgan. Guitars are prominent but not really dominating throughout Negative Liberty – that is, nothing on the album is exclusively riff-led – and as “Fuck You Buddy” bleeds into the acoustic start of “The Lonely Robot” (12:41), I’m more drawn to the warmth in the bass sound than to the loneliness of the guitar notes, however melodically engaging they might be. Like all the material here, “The Lonely Robot” takes its time developing, but ultimately hits its high point even earlier into the proceedings than did “Fuck You Buddy.” That’s not a critique or putting down the structures The Winchester Club are working in. Quite the opposite. As someone who hears a lot of instrumental bands, it’s refreshing to have one come along not hell-bent on marching to the heavy part, instead getting it out of the way so the music can breathe. With the humming undercurrent of amp noise in the later parts, “The Lonely Robot” sounds full and complete, but still manages to hold onto that walking-alone ambience.

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