WINDSOR FOR THE DERBY - Giving Up The Ghost

The indie-rock landscape, or whatever we choose to call it under the broader pop music umbrella, has long been strongly marked by a particular trait: look back and you'll spot the 80s, with their sounds, atmospheres and styles being constantly revisited.

So here we are, unable to keep count of all the bands who've learned by heart the lesson taught by Gang Of Four (some better, some worse, to be fair), by Joy Division (and it must be said, Interpol are holding up remarkably well), by Television, by the Cure, and so on.

Different approaches: some more physical and danceable, in the wake of punk-funk, others more introspective, marked by a restless, nervy stillness.

This year saw the release of "Disaffected" by Piano Magic, where New Order and the Cure meet and get streaked with post-rock tints that never feel oppressive, and ultimately aren't all that defining.

Now it's the turn of "Giving Up The Ghost" by Windsor For The Derby, a shape-shifting, understated band capable, much like the aforementioned Piano Magic, of moving through numerous influences with a steady attitude: from the experimental post-rock of their early days, through the indie-rock drift of the excellent "The Emotional Rescue", right up to this latest album, dense with new wave and post-punk influences.

The common thread running through these compositions is a modern, oblique brand of pop, as in "Empathy For The Unknown", which opens sounding straight out of the 80s and, as it unfolds, even starts to recall something krautrock-ish, before closing with delay-smeared, ragged guitar arpeggios that bring to mind something very close to U2 at their finest.

And if Wire had never decided to devote themselves to a furious, industrial post-punk, how would they sound in 2005?

Listen to "Praise" and you'll get your answer: drums calligraphically lifted from Joy Division's "Transmission", dry and clipped, and guitars of a kind you can only hear on "Pink Flag" and "154".

Listening to "Gathering", on the other hand, it's really the latest evolution of Colin Newman's band that resurfaces heavily, with that carpet of distorted guitars, an obsessive repetition of certain devices, and a driving rhythm section.

The real novelty here lies in the sound, less polished than on the previous record, and in the arrangements, built around keyboards and ambient textures that are truly beautiful; "Shadows" is proof of that, suspended between the Cure of "Pornography" and, once again, Wire, especially where Dan Matz's voice is concerned.

There's no shortage of moments more typically in line with the post-rock sound associated with the Secretly Canadian label, such as "The Front" and "Giving Up", where acoustic guitar plays a key role, thanks to arpeggios that stick in the memory.

The album as a whole comes across as heterogeneous but, as already noted, held together by a clearly recognisable logical thread: Windsor For The Derby are veterans, and this record presents them as magnificent losers, still capable of moving us, of coming across as sincere, of crafting a musical statement worthy of our respect and our closest attention.

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30/04/2026