Labels: Faux Discx – Gringo
Review by: Alex Deller
You’ve got to hand it to a band who, with five bona fide bangers on their album, kick things off with a ten-minute spoken word track recounting a prosaic series of incidents in some rather grey and humdrum part of Britain. Blankly-intoned female vocals trade off against similarly well-enunciated male ones while bright guitar pieces jangle like pieces of broken milkbottle in a carrier bag, drums skip playful beats and polite feedback whooshes in and out of earshot all while the tale continues in a manner so bland it seems to positively goad you towards lifting the record player’s arm with a loud, pissy HARUMPH. If you’ve any sense, of course, you’ll see it through just like you did with the ‘arty’ track on their demo, rewarded both by a deeper understanding of what the band are all about and also those aforementioned bangers. These lurk around the two to three-minute mark, comprising similar elements to the epic opener with the monotone replaced by yelpy, nervy hooks, smooth female back-ups and an overall vibe not unlike Royal Headache or some latterday In The Red band if their teenagehoods had included a Sonic Youth infatuation and a pile of battered Television Personalities records. All in all, it’s really rather lovely and, for my money, a massive stride forward for one of country’s most interesting punk bands.