Labels: self released
Review by: Captain Fidanza
Judging by the amount of groups running about with unbelievably bad names these days, choosing a band name can’t be as easy as it was for Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1970. I suppose the best thing is just not to force it, to wait for inspiration, or, if inspiration fails to arrive, just be like Yellow Magic Orchestra and choose three totally unconnected words and get on with things.
Bang Bang Romeo ? That’s almost as bad as Spermbirds, although not quite. Nothing could ever be as bad as Spermbirds.
But anyway, enough of the extraneous matters surrounding this “electrifying” four piece, once described by DJs worldwide as “trippy and exciting,” what of the music, the music the music the music the music the music ? For after all, it is the music upon which a band stands or falls is it not ? A band could have a really great name and a brilliant image and a fantastic logo and the best clothes and the most charismatic members but if the music the music the music is rubbish, then the band is rubbish; stands to reason.
Fortunately, the music here is absolutely brilliant, so the fact that the band is called Bang Bang Romeo, has no discernible image whatsoever, has an appallingly hackneyed logo complete with arrow-pierced hearts in the centre of the O’s, wears clothes that even the people I see outside The Old Blue Last on a Friday evening would balk at and is comprised of musicians whose talents are clearly more suited to logo design makes no difference.
Yes, thank goodness the music is brilliant. Unless of course half realised dance-pop, vaguely reminiscent of that omnipresent Kylie song from 2001 that was written by the woman who went to the same high school as me and Andy Mal is not your thing. Don’t worry though, because some twat who has taken too much coke once described them as having “spiralling guitars and reverberating basslines” so if you buy this when it’s released on January 21st and think it’s shit, he’ll reimburse you in full.
For those of you who are interested in purchasing this, I am happy to inform you that Bang Bang Romeo are sticking very close to the ethos of the bands which they claim to be inspired by (Talking Heads and Joy Division amongst them) by only releasing their EP in the following traditional formats:
Download
CD
“Band-in-a-Bag” bundle including T-shirt, badges, CD or USB and a sticker.
I used to live with someone who knew Ian Curtis and he reliably informed me that not a day went by without Ian bemoaning his band’s lack of foresight when it came to the marketing of their work. “If only we could have released An Ideal for Living as part of a “Band-in-a-Bag” promotion” he used to say, “then perhaps Joy Division might have gone on to become a band that meant something to someone, rather than just a ridiculous and largely forgotten Human League tribute band.”
What a visionary he was.