A Universe Made of Strings by In Each Hand A Cutlass

A suitably weather-worn picture of a pirate ship and an incongruously modern abstraction of the world map sit together on the cover of this long-awaited debut from Singapore supergroup In Each Hand a Cutlass. Throw on the band’s fantastical name and the album’s reference to quantum physics, and you get the feeling there’s a lot to expect from the next 51 minutes – though you’re not quite sure what.

The album opens with a short but masterfully crafted prelude – sirens, footsteps, police radio chatter, orchestral soundtrack – that brings to mind the perfect introduction to a thriller movie, before seguing neatly into the real opener, a fi ttingly James Bond-esque piece titled ‘Inspector Cutlass’. From there the tracks weave somewhat haphazardly between postrock, progressive metal, funk and even a bit of improv jazz for good measure. In fact, it’s all a bit wobbly. The titles, too, suggest a schizophrenic screenwriter, from the romantic, tragicomic ‘Chocolate and the Lovelorn Girl’ to historical fantasy epic ‘Hammering the Bones’.

Thankfully, the closing title track saves our quintet of pirate adventurers from further cross-genre spaghetti, with assured, uplifting acoustic guitar and strings that can only signal a happy ending. While the not-quite concept album will impress instrumental rock lovers with its heavy guitar riffi ng and complex rhythms, others might be distracted by the lack of any consistent thread in what is otherwise a sure-footed, impressive debut – one that would be all the better if only it could decide what it wanted to be. Justin Koh