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Leg is the debut LP from Leeds-based minimalist rock trio Beige Palace.

Ant Bedford (drums/vocals), Kelly Bishop (keys/violin/vocals) and Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe (guitar/keys/vocals) have spent the past couple of years incubating their sound at Leeds DIY rehearsal space CHUNK. 2016’s Gravel Time EP brought comparisons with the city’s preeminent experimental rock group Bilge Pump due to its combination of post-hardcore grooves, witty lyricism and abrasive guitar skronk - the elements that made Gravel Time such an unusual and arresting listen remain on Leg. ‘Ketchup Dirt’ - easily spotted for its hilarious refrain of ‘oh my God, it’s on my shirt’ - is full of the sing-song back-and-forths between all three members found all over that EP, and ‘Illegal Backflip’ has the same Slint-esque slouch to its groove as Gravel Time opener ‘Song Arm’.

The group has also built on the groundwork they laid on Gravel Time; John Cale-aping drones backbone ‘Mum, Tell Him’ and ‘Candy Pink Sparkle’. The way in which the former swells from monolithic keys to an urgent post-punk number is reminiscent of early Ought. As for the latter, Bishop’s keening violin dovetails with Vinehill-Cliffe’s impressionistic lyric for one of Leg’s most sublime moments. Closer ‘Dinner Practice’ recalls Enablers in the way it oscillates between languidly beautiful post-rock and sections of grizzled noise. Meanwhile there are few bands who would even attempt to break up the gnarled anti-rock of ‘Dr. Thingy’ with an acapella mid-section - let alone pull it off.

While most of the tracks were cut with Rob Slater and Jamie Lockhart at Leeds’ Greenmount Studios (Pulled Apart By Horses, Post War Glamour Girls), Leg also includes two interludes produced by the band themselves. ‘Laughing With Friend, Washing Our Hand’ is a funny bit of musique concrete made up of dictaphone recordings from inside Whitby’s Dracula Experience, while ‘Aggregate’ is a starkly brief poem read by Bishop’s father David. ‘Aggregate’ is but one instance of adventurous lyricism on the LP - in the words of Vinehill-Cliffe, the tracks here take in ‘the politics of figure skating, reimagining the genesis of the universe as a conversation between a mother and her petulant son, half-garbled childhood memories and chin-stroking aesthetic theory about the qualities of "dirt"’.

Leg is a record of ambitious art-rock that will stay with you for both its humour and its heft.

FFO: Deerhoof, This Heat, Slint, Richard Dawson, Ivor Cutler