Labels: Life on an Island
Review by: Alex Deller
Going through boxes of stuff in the loft gets to be a bit magical at times. I keep uncovering all this stuff that I’ve not even thought about for at least two years. Here’s one such thing: a tape by a band from New York called Haircut. I remember listening to this, sitting on my shitty couch in a shitty flat in Walthamstow. I remember being pretty impressed and emailing Andy, mentioning such things as a pop-punk Palatka and Q-Factor and maybe even the Former Members Of Alfonsin / Bread & Circuits split LP. In hindsight, I might have been a bit overexcited and probably needed to take some deep breaths and have a cup of something warm and calming. Because while it’s pretty good, I don’t want you to get all het up and think it’s quite as amazing as any of those things I just mentioned. As the references would suggest, it’s ragged and shrieky and dotted through with a bunch of barely-together melodies. Whether they were aiming for this brand of ramshackle, splenetic punk or the result is just a happy accident I’m not sure, but to me it sounds good. Unfortunately there are also a few fairly shonky ska moments that rather rain on the parade, but they’re few and far between enough that you can just about forgive ’em. Between me putting this in a box of stuff and taking it out of that box again they’ve released another cassette album. I think hitting up Bandcamp and giving it a go might be a good idea for you and me both. Shall we?