Amplifier Magazine
Captain Wilberforce – Mindfilming

After releasing a well received 7-song homemade demo last year, Yorkshire’s Captain Wilberforce returns with the pop dynamism of Mindfilming. The basic CW architecture hints at the Beatles’ mature period (“Teaching You to Swim” weaves a dark “Eleanor Rigby” thread into a new pattern, and the title track does the same with “A Day in the Life”) but there are also flashes of Radiohead’s experimentalism (“Singer Wanted, Preferably Dead”) and Coldplay’s simple majesty (“After Her”). Oddly enough, the confluence of all this dark melodicism sounds an awful lot like a British spin on Michael Penn, particularly on the compelling album’s first two songs, “Glass” and “Vaselined Eyes.” Mixing rock, folk, and pop conventions with an edgy ease (and doing so in the 16-minutes-a-side whirlwind pace of the ’60s vinyl era), Captain Wilberforce crafts darkly beautiful three-minute gems and links generations all at the same time.

-BRIAN BAKER.