Esprit De Corps - Under Constant Influence - CD (2009)

Labels: self released
Review by: Joe Callaghan

I was drawn into reviewing this instantly, as it struck a chord with me as soon as I pulled it out of the jiffy bag. For all I know, it could have been 70 of minutes of recorded wildlife flatulence, but it didn’t matter, because it just looks so good, cased in a very impressively printed brown card package. It’s actually difficult to make a CD look impressively presentable because CD’s are aesthetically ugly, and look like handheld flying weaponry from the future, used for detaching heads from torsos. The glossy, bold black print stands out miles, on the thick construction card, with print both inside and out. Good grief, this thing just looks great. It makes the rest of my CD’s look like crap. Man, My CD’s look like crap, with their chipped, scratched plastic casing, covered in dust and grime. Urgh. I’ve never been so ashamed since this CD fell through my door. Now, I have this bleating, hideous guilt, that I’ve got shelves and shelves of these tacky, plastic piles of animal excretion, ugly-ing up my house. I don’t even think I can slot this exceptional effort among the piss storm that is my CD collection. It’s like when the one hot girl gets on the bus and sits along side the toothless wasters who have pissed themselves 6 weeks ago and haven’t washed. You’d feel bad for her, wouldn’t you? I’d feel bad for the CD, like I should put it away in a trophy case for no one to touch, like Nigel Tuffnel’s guitar that can’t be played or even pointed at, and eventually not even looked at. The CD should have its own place at the dinner table and a spot on the sofa. It also calls shotgun, always. Oh, and the CD in the box? It’s alright. Growly hardcore punk. Fast bit, slow bit etc. There’s a keyboard player though. You know that really obsessive, borderline-stalker friend of the band that they feel sorry for so they let him play keyboards in a genre where keyboards really don’t have much history of ever working? Yeah, that. Probably like that guy who dances for Avail. I bet he started out by peering in through Tim Barry’s window, and collecting his finger nail clippings out of the bin. Now, he’s clarting about on stage with them, like this keyboard player. Get rid of the keyboards, and it’s a fairly standard No Idea release. God, it looks so fucking great though.