The closer I creep toward my own inevitable end, the more I appreciate the work of Nearly Dead. With their third album they’ve reached a groggy apotheosis of Brainbombs worship, combining relentless monotony with disgustedly resigned homages to old age. Riffs flow like cold oatmeal being slowly slurped through a feeding tube; rheumy eyes stare through a TV set that only ever seems to screen Everybody Loves Raymond repeats and, occasionally, a trumpet rasps breathlessly, as though fitfully powered by sputum-flooded lungs. The whole thing is mercilessly unkind and unendingly depressing – arguably the perfect primer for old age in a beshitted, uncaring country that grinds its people to powder before leaving them to slowly skeletalise in the sagging armchairs of piss-smelling care homes.
