Labels: Group Tightener
Review by: Andy Malcolm
I’ve been wanting to get me hands on some Fluffy Lumbers (whats?) since hearing their song “Adoration” on some comp, that song is fucking amazing. Anyway, here they do 3 songs that are kind of like a bit of Wild Nothing, a bit of Real Estate, and a lot of distortion, and a distressingly poor recording. It’s all pretty, poppy melodies stranded in a mire of lumpen fuzz and stylus dust. “Harry Dolland’s” is a super track, the shabbily recorded distorted parts render it somewhat in the thrall of shoegazing, and it is lazy to a fault, but there is a delightful punky edge to proceedings that helps carry the day. The vocals are swamped by this thick layer of failure, who knows what the guy is whining on about and there’s no lyric sheet, but get this, it totally works. “Gradeschool Fantasy” opens with the old shoegaze trick of fucking with the guitars to make them sound broken. This one barely can escape it’s own weight, and isn’t exactly going to draw me back for future listenings. A wilfully self destroyed song, kind of like how Spectrals make all their stuff out of tune, Fluffy Lumbers have recorded what might have been something quite pleasant and kicked it in the nads repeatedly until it is wimpering in the corner, with all hope of siring children gone for good. “On the Twist” is equally as bludgeoned.
I am not quite sure I can see the worth in Fluffy Lumbers maltreating their music quite as badly as they do, when the one song which resembles music as I know it is really fucking good. This guy (and it’s only one guy) is onto something, but I fear that a phobia of his own music is leading him down a dark path. Be not afraid, fair fellow!