And so, Amplifier become only the second artist to top this List more than once, across its 26 iterations. While Bloc Party achieved the feat in 3 years (2005, 2008), the gap this time is an amazing 21 years. Amplifier have consistently been one of my favourite bands throughout that period, but the fact that they have delivered a record this strong now is a major surprise given their recent history. The pandemic nearly ended them, with Sel Balamir suffering from long and severe COVID, his band effectively breaking up around him while he was ill, and then – once well enough – him initially deciding to release solo material.
Thankfully Amplifier eventually re-emerged from the ashes, but now as a two piece: the band’s two core, original members deciding to go it alone. What should have been their triumphant return, though – 2023’s Hologram – was a huge disappointment. Like Arcade Fire’s WE, it is their only record not to make this List, but, unlike Arcade Fire, it is also their only record not to place somewhere in the top 6. It was a drop off so notable that I thought they might be done. I’m delighted to have been wrong about that.
The first thing to say about the record itself is that it’s very well named. Gargantuan is just that: vast in scope. Indeed, its scale is cosmic. Amplifier have always incorporated a large dollop of space rock into their sound, but Gargantuan sees them voyaging further out into the galaxy than they ever have before. Both ‘Invader’ and ‘Blackhole’, for example, combine a wall of psychedelic guitar effects with unselfconscious spacefaring lyrics in ways that evoke some of the best parts of 2011’s The Octopus. ‘Blackhole’, in particular, is interdimensional: it’s a duet between Balamir and guest vocalist Jennifer Gira where every line is sung by both of them, meaning that the whole track has this ghostly, alien echo. Super cool.
The tracks on Gargantuan also benefit from featuring multiple layered guitars, making the record sound truly epic. I was concerned that the move to a two piece might mean the band felt small, and there were moments of that on Hologram. But here, with Balamir already layering guitars in the absence of other bandmates, he doubles down. Why stop at 3 guitars when you can have 5? The result is a sound that’s rich, nuanced, and, most of all, huge. NB: I did wonder how this would work live but seeing them perform as a two piece for the first time in May was something special. Balamir looping his playing and layering all the elements of these songs in real time is a feat of technical proficiency that’s well beyond my comprehension.
In retrospect, I now read Hologram less as a failure and more as a necessary step to allow this new iteration of Amplifier to find itself. One of the most notable course corrections from Hologram on Gargantuan is a return to some killer riffs, of the sort that helped make their 2004 debut a masterpiece. Gargantuan might be Amplifier’s most spacey record but it’s not their most progressive one. There is plenty of focus to its journeying, and there are always some chunky-riff gravity boots around to hold us down. How the two interact – trippy space rock and colossal riffs – are where the greatest joy is to be found here. And it doesn’t get any better than on the bridging track ‘Entity’. It flows directly from the riff at the end of ‘Pyramid’ into a knotty, swirling mass of sound, which then wriggles and twists and riffs into the thunderous opening of ‘Guilty Pleasure’. Those 5 minutes or so, spread across 3 tracks, are by far the best thing Amplifier have done since 2004.
Ultimately, while Gargantuan is certainly not as good as their debut – still one of the best records ever made – the fact that Amplifier have somehow delivered a second List-topping record 21 years on has underlined something that had already been fairly clear for the last two decades: they are one of the true greats. All hail.