Labels: Utilitarian
Review by: Andy Malcolm
If anyone tells you they get what this band are doing then you have the right to slap them about the chops, poke them in the chest and call them all kinds of rude names because This Robot Kills are freakin’ weird. But undeniably rocking. So imagine a pretty middle paced sort of a new-wavey garagey rock band with similarities to stuff like Nation of Ulysses and some of that San Diego oddess, e.g. Spanakorzo or Antioch Arrow. Vocals are distorted and sung / slurred by some guy who sounds half-cut. Each song features some bizarre quirk that you weren’t expecting. On tracks such as “101” you get a sorta surfy guitar sound going on, and then they bring in some casio keyboard affect and oh. I can’t even begin to explain it. One instrumental song has horns on it. And another is really electronic oriented, with lots of blips and beeps, and the guy drunkenly shouting stuff like “You’re so funny!” over the top. My favourite is the last song, which starts off with a loping country style intro, and then has bits where they play just some random notes on the guitar really fast. This is daft. So daft that it’s great.
Very good in small doses, but I should think they could get annoying. Check ’em out if you can stomach the 1985, cos you’ll find these guys really kick your ass bigtime!