Aldous Harding cuts a divisive figure in the world of alt-rock. To her devotees – and there are enough of them to warrant her playing three nights at London’s Barbican later this month – she is a strange and endlessly fascinating figure. Her lyrics are mysteries to be unpicked for deeper meaning, like dreams awaiting analysis. On Train on the Island, her fifth album, you’re invited to make some kind of sense of stuff about naked owls, having your face covered with bechamel sauce, seeing “the real John Cale” silently eating rice, “Sicilians reaching over the clams”, and the imponderable lines: “I’m saving myself by eating rocks and plants / I pray for the incel.”
The curious album covers; the uneasy stage presence and between-song non-sequiturs;…