Published: 8:00 am, November 20, 2018 Words: Stephen Ackroyd.

The 1975 don’t lack in ambition. While their self-titled debut album may have received the odd mauling from a music press unprepared for what the band would go on to become, it built the devoted following that propelled its follow up - 2016’s ‘I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it’ - into the stratosphere. With a 180 degree flip on the wider perceptions of the group, it was a revelation that challenged those previous judgements and won.

When it comes to a third full-length, nobody would blame The 1975 if they took the obvious route. ‘I like it when you sleep...’ had a defining vibe running through its core - much copied but rarely perfected by their peers. While they experimented around the edges, to replicate what worked so well last time around would be met with little complaint, either commercially or critically.

The fact that ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’ never once takes the easy way out is exactly why The 1975 are a band impossible to ape. The first of two records under the ‘Music For Cars’ umbrella, it isn’t just a great album - it’s a generation-defining masterpiece. Refusing to succumb to expectations, it’d be obvious to label it part poptimist contender to Radiohead’s ‘Kid A’, part millennial ‘OK Computer’. In truth, though, it’s both, and yet so much more.

Skipping through the dial, each track has its own rulebook, but against all odds, they hang together effortlessly. Never difficult without cause, nor so simplistic it runs out of new avenues to explore, it’s an exposition on the modern condition, every moment revealing something telling about the world around us.

But then, from the first glimpse, ‘A Brief Inquiry...’ has been more than just a simple collection of songs. Introduced over a month-long period of posters, social media teasers and hidden online puzzles, nothing about it seems to be without logic or reason. A celebration of the genre-bled mixing bowl of youth culture in 2018, it’s a record that steadfastly refuses to stick in a single lane. ‘TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME’’s tropical bop is a million miles from their expected turf, and yet when placed against the atmospheric stabs of ‘How To Draw / Petrichor’, that juxtaposition only becomes even more stark. Glitching and tripping like Thom Yorke interfacing with Kanye’s rogue autotuner, it lends further stock to frontman Matty Healy’s claim that no other arena-sized band currently dare be as musically interesting as The 1975. That so much of that fascination comes from the rolling, eclectic soundboards of drummer and production mastermind George Daniel only furthers their brilliance.

