Noise Factory United release new single 'Cloud Pleaser'.
- Richard Blowes
- 18 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Noise Factory United release Cloud Pleaser the last single before their debut EP Visions From The Frontier drops in March
Track: Cloud Pleaser
Band: Noise Factory United
Released: January 30 2026
When we reviewed Noise Factory United's previous single The Quickest Blade In The West, we noted "There is a strong eighties post punk/electronica feel to the track bringing to mind bands as diverse as The Human League, Visage and Wire."
We also said we'd be keeping an eye on this band and so here we are with their new single Cloud Pleaser, the final release before their much anticipated (in this parish anyway) debut EP Visions From The Frontier.
One of the beauties of this band is that you never quite know what you are going to get. Cloud Pleaser opens in an ominous post punk fashion, all throbbing fuzzy bassline and eerie synths before it swerves into a Cocteau Twins-esque shoegaze swirl. What you don't get is the simmering, heavenly vocals of Elizabeth Fraser.
Producers usually expend considerable effort treating vocals and sitting them perfectly in the instrumental mix. Here it sounds like they were recorded through a megaphone in an acoustic hall of mirrors before being dolloped gloriously on top of the backing. Why would anyone do that some may ask? Well for us the answers are a) so what? and b) if you really want to know, because it suits the song and what it's aiming to say. As they say "Forget the four horses. Nobody heralds the apocalypse quite like us for we bring alternatives." The apocalypse is not going to be soundtracked by Mariah Carey.
Also when the backing vocals kick in they have a sweetening effect and they leaven the anxiety somewhat leaving us the mysterious message "8000 miles, if that what it's going to take to be a cloud pleaser." Quite what lies 8000 miles away from Portsmouth is unexplained however if it's a space trip soundtracked by Noise Factory United, we're in.
Noise Factory United hail from Portsmouth on the South Coast of England.
They don't do wistful romance, solipsistic spirals or power ballads. Just socially-driven, self-deprecating songs about the grey and enigmatic zones of the everyday in their port city of Portsmouth.
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