With production coming from Mountain Goats collaborator, Scott Solter, III is the latest release from York Calling discovery Winfield.

By Graeme Smith

Consisting of Brad Prenda, Victoria Roy, Kent Corley, and David Bunch, Winfield are a Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA-based collective who like to add elements of experimentation to an alternative rock, post-punk and shoegaze sound.

Fans of this blog will know that those are three genres that I can’t get enough of, but they’re also genres in which it’s difficult to stand out from the crowd. Bands often try and play it safe, imitating the legends of the field and their influences. Happily, that’s not the case for Winfield.

I could tell I was in for something special right from III‘s moody and ambient opener 1+1+1. A driving bass, courtesy of Kent Corley sets the tempo before Victoria Roy’s ethereal vocals come in. They provide some lightness to the heaviness of the instrumental and means the track proves to be an early highlight.

Across the album’s eight tracks, we get plenty more highlights. The band say they’ve had a good response to Run and Static and it’s easy to see why. The former follows 1+1+1, upping the tempo and providing plenty of emotion. The latter goes hard with ghostly riffs from Brad Prenda, and some serious drumming from David Bunch. Autonomy deserves a special mention too. The album’s first single, it’s a delicate, layered jewel at the heart of the album. As does soulful and stripped-back record closer, Wade In The Water.

III is out now, available to buy as a digital album, on cassette, or on CD via Bandcamp. You can give it a listen below.