Labels: British Wildlife
Review by: Alex Deller
This one turned up at my place of work unannounced and uninvited. To be honest they rather seem like the types to do that. You’ve done something, maybe not even something wrong in the eyes of most normal, right-thinking people, but something. And all of a sudden they’re there, steaming drunk and slavering, causing a bother at the front desk and rattling the bejesus out of the mild-mannered receptionist. This time it was just a cassette tape in a padded envelope. A three-song cassette tape. With a note. And a CD of the songs that are on the cassette tape in case my Walkman is broken or I gave it to the charity shop or I left it in France on a holiday I took when I was younger with a tape still in it that had Mudhoney on one side and Soundgarden on the other and my Gameboy earphones attached. Anyway, I should listen to it. And I suppose because they know where I am and what I do that I should say something nice about them. Thankfully that won’t be any trouble, because the songs here are pretty good. They lurk and they yowl and they sound like they probably like bands like Pissed Jeans and Scratch Acid. That’s good, because I do too. For all their awkward edges and top-of-lungs ranting things are quite song-y. ‘Mystery Thriller Teen Drama’ starts this tape with some lurches and some howls and, towards the end, has some neat, straggly, melodic guitar work that reminds me of something Fugazi might have once employed. ‘Kellogg’s Wasps’ has a horribly evocative title and drags its chords around like a diseased hind leg while the singer hoarsely implores some poor soul to tell him he/she loves him. It’s all a bit uncomfortable. ‘Ghostesses’ is a bit more spry and almost rock n’ rollish in demeanour. It’s perhaps a little less fully-formed than the other two, but still wholly enjoyable and gets better as it rolls along. That rounds things off quite nicely, and it would be good to hear more at some point in the future. Just please don’t turn up at my work unannounced again. The people here still talk about it and the receptionist hasn’t been quite the same since. Thankfully no-one knows it was me you were here to see since you weren’t making any sense, but next time I know that I mightn’t be quite so lucky. Thanks.