Labels: Unfun
Review by: Andy Malcolm
As the great man himself (Deller) said, boy does this look like a Repercussion Records release. Of coures, that’s completely ignoring that Repercussion put out some unmitigated poop in my opinion (Suiciety, Manumission), and that neither of us were cool enough to own any of the records when they came out anyway. Still, with it’s rather random looking painted cover, minimal insert with lyrics in broken typewriter mode, replete with errors, and black vinyl (they shoulda gone for that gawd forsaken translucent black vinyl of mediocre quality to REALLY get the full effect on), this could quite easily pass for some mid 90’s emo record that you stumbled across in some guys distro, and get really excited about finding, only for them to say “I have 93 of those in my attic”.
So aesthetically, the Q-Roo are hanging with the homely boys, but how about on a musical scale? Do they rip it up emo fashion? Or did they just bang out a few record covers on the cheap because they felt like it. Well…
Musically they are a lot more nu-school than those old timers, harsh vocals that are screechy and generally harsh pitched are more likely to bring to mind bands like Bright Calm Blue and Spirit of Versailles than your Indian Summer, but on the music side of things they have a pretty rocking version of emo down. Confusing time structures, beautiful twinkle parts, build ups build downs, you got your Embassy type comparisons going on here for sure. It is quite ramshackle and rough, guitars distort and screech then fall away into some wonderful mellowed out meanderings. Very nice. Whilst on the second side, they settle into a punishing emo-groove, the quality of which I haven’t been privy to in a while.
So the conclusion? It looks ’94, it doesn’t really sound ’94, but hey, it’s damn fine anyway. Emo-ists will appreciate this one on a number of points, so go find it.