Labels: Whosbrain
Review by: Gareth L
Bit of an oddball this one, and probably an exercise in frustration to try and Google search. The titles of 8 of the 11 songs begin with the word ‘My’, their last album was called ‘Me’, yet despite this tomfoolery I get the impression there is a punk aesthetic to much of this band’s raison d’etre. Cacophonous vocals, muddy distortion, electronic bleeps, and a regular dose of saxophonic skronk make this not an easy listen, but certainly an interesting one. Sounding somewhere between Naked City, Zu, and Sweep The Leg Johnny, it took me a while to warm up to Myself (ha) but I still think on a couple of tracks the vocals unfortunately sound a bit like a parody of ‘generic aggressive vocalist’ and don’t really fit the music, which may have worked better as instrumentals, see ‘My Run Against Me’ and bits of ‘My Favourite Foe’ for evidence. Elsewhere, the vocals on ‘Jazzy Lazzi’ seem to have been recorded on someone’s answering machine. However, I am especially down with the screaming in ‘My Second Coffee’, which may just be the standout track here, with its driving energy and mixture of melody and chaos. Musically you can’t really argue with what they’re doing, and if you’re down with any of the aforementioned bands you could certainly do worse than Myself.