With their new record ‘The Imperfectionist’, Nothing Concrete are showing us their impressive artistic maturity and raw honesty. The multi-cultural band, who first came together in Scotland, currently call the Gascogne area in France home, with their newest album recorded in a nearby eco-friendly studio in the Ariège. The collective energy which can be heard throughout the nine tracks on ‘The Imperfectionist’ certainly radiates from the moment you press play and suggests that every musician put their soul into the recording process. The flow from afrobeat to blues to tango and every transition in between is effortless, with an earthy sound that producer Keith Witty helped to make global, warm and entirely genuine. The band have just been announced as playing Glastonbury in 2025 so it’s definitely worth checking them out when the opportunity arises.

“The Boats” opens the album on a very earnest note, with its ode to immigration and human connection. This track’s rhythm sounds like a wave of a thousand bodies at the beach, heavy and persistent. “Broken Bird” is a stark, vulnerable track with an almost hymnal simplicity to it. It’s not entirely devoid of emotion but you can almost hear the quiet dignity in the simplicity of the sound. “Cometh The Hour” rocks a little more, with rough vocals and an insistent beat that still smacks you in the gut. “Empty Whiskey Bottle Mariachi Blues” is more of a jam, where Nothing Concrete push genre boundaries but never feel like they’re jumping through hoops to do it. It’s fun but weighted with meaning in all the right places. “He Don’t Do Much Of That Now” is another return to simplicity; stripped down and reflective, with a raw vocal quality that ensnares. It might just be the title track “The Imperfectionist” that’s the heart of this record. It’s more a statement than a song, about accepting our imperfections and feeling the freedom that this can bring.

The final three tracks don’t let up either. “John Henry Lee” leans in more to folklore than previous tracks, with a deep blues quality and strumming pattern which is impossibly heavy. “No Force” is a little gentler but just as bold and feels a little more like a quietly shouted battlecry. “S.O.S – Save Our Souls” ratchets up the intensity once more with its sustained, eerie groove and a quiet desperation lying just under the surface. The last song, “The Western”, wraps the record up with a cinematic flourish. Moving through a variety of acoustic textures with a sweeping sense of space and a clear-eyed adventurousness. Every track on ‘The Imperfectionist’ feels authentic, crafted by people who have nothing left to prove but plenty of stories to share. It’s music that lingers long after the final note has faded not because it overextends itself, but because it’s never trying to be anything other than itself.

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