7/10
The second EP from Guildford's Aqualine arrives with the kind of nervous energy its title suggests—five songs that feel perpetually on edge, ready to snap at any moment. It's post-punk meets grunge with shoegaze textures, but what stops it feeling like a '90s nostalgia exercise is the band's genuine volatility.
Recording mostly live to tape was a risk that's paid off. You can hear it in how the rhythm section breathes together, how the guitars respond to each other rather than following a programmed script. "Hit Me" lurches between infectious hooks and jarring intensity without warning. "Poppy" maintains a tighter grip on its momentum, while "Orchidline" drifts into fragile territory that apparently took multiple attempts to capture properly—that struggle shows in a good way, the song feeling genuinely uncertain of itself.
The guitar work deserves specific mention. There's real invention here in how sounds mutate mid-track, clean tones warping into fuzz, pitch-shifted lines that suggest Radiohead's more experimental side without copying the homework. It's technically impressive but never showy, always serving the song's emotional logic.
Simon Schenk-Mair's production and Matt Glasbey's mix strike the right balance—clear enough to appreciate the interplay between instruments, rough enough to retain the band's live reputation for "untameable angst." Katie Tavini's mastering keeps everything visceral.
Aqualine clearly have the chops—the touring, the BBC Radio 6 support, the festival slots make sense when you hear how locked-in they are. 'Tripwire' works best as proof of concept: here's a band that can play, that has things to say, and that's still figuring out exactly how weird they're willing to get.
Stream the full collection below
