Labels: Golden Brown
Review by: Alex Deller
Life Detecing Coffins released split LP with Forstella Ford a while back – not something I listened to repeatedly, but decent to the point that there was a vague hum of anticipation around this release since they were rather interesting and had the potential to metamorphose into something fairly special.
So here it is. Spinning in pretty circles somewhere within my creaking stereo, songs that by now I’m almost familiar with. But I’m still baffled. I still don’t quite understand. They still have that dissonant math-indie thing going on. That’s without a doubt. They still like to dance a merry jig and twist and turn, leading us, the easily confused listeners, down the garden path and then some, which can usually only be a good thing. But. But. I still don’t get it. Too much of this cd just sounds like a load of crap. Bad. But not just bad. Uh uh. Fearsomely bad. Bad like the whiteboy funk band your dickhead friends played in at sixth form. Bad like Robert Smith singing off-key while his balls were mid-way between dropping and not. Bad like a test-tube baby made with semen provided by aging guitar god Carlos Santana and slapheaded metal homophobe Kerry King. Bad like that. Bad like all of those things on the same shit-smeared platter, messed together with wayward muso glee.
But then they drop a song or a riff or a vocal part into the middle that knocks you for six. Like the first and fifth tracks, where everything click-clicks and makes your eyes shine with wonder, only to have the next piece of junk filter through and knocks the smile off your ugly face with a backhanded slap.
Please. Just be good or bad. Not both. Especially not on the same album. And even more especially not within the same cocking song. I implore you. Now go away and gaze upon what you have created, and exactly where you went wrong. Because this beast has at least one too many heads and far too many arses.