Labels: Mentalist Association
Review by: Alex Deller
Starting with a whisper and an arpeggiated riff straight from a Sonic Youth song, it would appear that Shink’s cards are face-up on the table from the off. I don’t mean it sounds like it’s from a Sonic Youth song, I mean it fucking well is. Cheeky sods. The first song broods and meanders, gradually gaining volume and momentum like a ghost becoming flesh, building towards a taut crescendo that doubtless has the likes of Mogwai in its sights before trickling away again into a vague static hiss and that same stolen Sonic Youth riff. That’s the first song. Right there. Ten minutes of your life pretty well spent. Track two moves from an eerie haunted house intro towards jazzy, wah wah laden guitars of a Tortoise bent, before suddenly throwing an almighty strop, chucking some yelled vocals into the mix and sounding like Rodan or the Shipping News at their angriest. Good stuff. If this was the way things continued I’d be pretty happy, but sadly things get a touch patchy as they progress, with quality control seeming to wane in favour of milking the dawdling post-rock teat a tad too heavily, allowing things to get funky in the dankest possible way and suffer “neath the weight of dubious Michael Barrymoore-sounding vocal honks that should’ve been strangled at birth.
Frustratingly splendid on occasion, but something that would suit me better if some of the superfluous ballast was thrown overboard and the thing was pared down to a four or five track ep of Quarterstick homage and angular shilly-shally. Promising nonetheless.