Ebbb release debut album "Shallow Hits"

London trio Ebbb released their debut album, "Shallow Hits," via Ninja Tune, reviewed by DIY at four stars as "A refined statement from an outfit now fully emerged." The band pairs a rock drummer, a producer and a classically trained vocalist, a combination that on paper reads as too disparate to hold together but works in practice.

Producer Lev Ceylan, the group's self-described electronic heartbeat, said his ideas come from an internal process rather than any scene: "I find inspiration more often in myself. It's a lonely scene." Vocalist Will Rowland said the trio has been loosely associated with the Windmill venue's gig circuit, even if their sound does not match the post-punk that dominated London when he first arrived. Drummer Scott MacDonald came up playing emo, thrash and rock in Glasgow before moving to London and eventually meeting Ceylan through the South-East outfit Kyoto Kyoto.

The band's current sound took shape after Ceylan began making music with friends in Germany during the pandemic, moving away from guitar-based writing. "Messing around on the computer felt like being in a musical playground," he said, adding that production offered him wider horizons than a band format alone. "Shallow Hits" pulls together his production instincts, Rowland's confessional songwriting, drawn in part from the poetry of David Berman and the lyrics of Morrissey, and MacDonald's rock drumming.

The trio recorded the album with producer Tom Stafford during an intense, all-day, fortnight-long studio stint. "We've never grafted as hard as that," Rowland said, describing sessions that "drove us to heights we hadn't got to before." MacDonald said the pace put the band in what he called a state of pure adrenaline, a departure from writing on their own schedule.

"Shallow Hits" is out now, and Ebbb tour the UK in support of it from late November into December, with stops including Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and London. The album lands in the release calendar among the rest of the year's new indie releases from Ebbb, with the tour also logged in the tour guide.