There is substantial numerological logic to Penelope Isles naming this album ‘3’. In addition to being their third album, it is their first as a true three-piece with siblings Lily and Jack Wolter being joined by drummer Joe Taylor, best known for playing with Anna B Savage. It is also three years since they played live together, although five years since their second album ‘Which Way To Happy’ was released. In the intervening time, Jack and Lily have both released solo albums, as Cubzoa and My Precious Bunny respectively, that have been feted on this website. Jack has also been on the road with CMAT while Lily took a break from music, spending six months in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, pursuing a passion for surfing.
The album was written on a month-long surfing trip to Lagos, Portugal and is rooted in a sense of place, albeit a transient one with inspiration also being taken from the Isle of Lewis off Scotland’s northwest coast where the album was recorded, their hometown of Brighton and the countries that Lily visited on her travels. Even though it is the first record they have recorded live as a band, musically ‘3’ has more in common with the stylistic variety of their solo releases than the more straightforward sound narrative of ‘Which Way To Happy’.
‘3’ gets under way with ‘A Different Kind of Love’ which despite its opening line “contemplate a world of multicolour” has more of a sepia tone with some lovely, understated vocal melodies and the brief intrusion of Lily’s bassline that hints at the theme music for ‘Twin Peaks.’ The album really takes off though with ‘I Loved You Robert Pattinson’, its dreampop soundscapes reminiscent of the more swoon inducing moments of ‘Isn’t Anything’ era My Bloody Valentine. Their lyrics often read like diary entries, a trait that is exemplified on this track with its references to never working a shift sober and faking a faint at a Foo Fighters show. The song ends with some guitar action from Jack that it is easy to imagine filling the larger auditoriums he has become accustomed to playing.
In contrast, ‘Bom-Banes’ has a fragile vocal as Lily recounts time in Porto waiting tables for “the Lizard people” while missing out on being at a birthday gathering at the Brighton eatery that gives the song its title and references being back in time for a Penny Isles show. The song’s palette is expanded by some guitar action from Jack at its conclusion. The theme of missing out on festivities is continued with ‘Birthdays’, a tune with some vastly enjoyable overlapping harmonies and tempo shifts.
Although it only has two verses and lasts just over a minute, ‘Embo’ conjures the sparse feeling of floating lazily at sea with friends. ‘Pretty in Pixels’ has not only a nifty Psychedelic Furs referencing title but a dreampop swell with synths adding an extra texture. ‘Moonwalker’ is a rare instance of Jack’s vocals being foregrounded with Lily in the background and his guitar is at its most abrasive creating a vast soundscape to accompany lunar images. The song portrays the need to escape the earth’s destruction – “we’ll fly away / while the world decays.”
While there is considerable variety within ‘3’, ‘You Think You Got A Way With Dogs’ is an outlier that arguably does not fit at all. It is lo-fi, ramshackle and has a couple of too cutesy lines, “keep your bread buttery / and keep your heart fluttery” before ending with laughter around the piano. Although it sounds like fun in the studio, that is maybe where it should have stayed. Fortunately, they are quickly back on surer territory with ‘Thinking Seat’ which starts with a classic 60s pop melody and has an even more glorious sweeping chorus of “get out get out get it all out of my head.” The title references the overthinking that takes place in the driver’s seat of their touring van, all the plans, worries and the desperate need to find a parking space as well as throwing the phrase U.G.A.K.I. (you guys are killing it), a band in-joke to cope with the trials of touring, into the lyrical stew. The album ends in subdued fashion with ‘Am I Going Through This On My Own’, Lily and Jack sounding weary as they sing together to drum machine backing. However, when it gets to the first chorus consisting of the title, aptly enough Lily’s voice is on its own though with fluttering synth backing. Symbolically, after a plunge from a cliff, by the final chorus Jack’s voice is there to support hers.
Despite the odd misstep, ‘3’ is an impressive mix of diaristic writing that covers a range of sonic terrain. May it be the third of many,
Penelope Isles: 3 – Out 25 September 2026 (Bella Union)
Loved you, Robert Pattinson • Penelope Isles • Official Music Video
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
