Belmont Slope

The Declining Winter returns after a three-year layoff with Belmont Slope, perhaps their strongest statement to date. Pushing on from the pastoral blueprint of Home For Lost Souls (HAM 010LP, 2015), Belmont Slope is a bold and varied album, extending the boundaries of their earlier sound, introducing pop sensibilities and daring electronic flourishes. Truly a northern English album, Belmont Slope is a haphazard car ride across the M62, a love letter to the hills of Yorkshire and Lancashire, a paean to desolate beauty, unattainable love and lost friends. The Declining Winter is the brainchild of Hood co-founder Richard Adams, an ever-changing collective who emerge blinking into the daylight from their Yorkshire enclave with a unique blend of pastoral and lo-fi pop, shimmering electronics and rural post-rock. RIYL: The Go-Betweens, Grizzly Bear, The Smiths, Mogwai, and Hood.