Labels: California Surf Wax
Review by: Alex Hannan
This is the second cassette EP from Coventry’s LOVE HURTS after last year’s “Piss Stories”. The five tracks zip by pretty fast – only third song “Kurt Cobain” tops two minutes. Musically, the garagey riffs and energy hark back to the likes of SHITTY LIMITS or perhaps a less manic DEAN DIRG. As with those bands the building blocks of the sound could be by any number of groups – the delivery, vocal hooks and songwriting are where a band stamps out its own identity.
And the songwriting here is strong – each tune is greater than the sum of its parts thanks to a catchy chorus, a neat key change or a rhythmic hook, like the contrast between driving verse and stabbing chorus in “Punk in magic”. “Party riffs” starts with a simple garage thump which twists into a neatly dovetailing double vocal hook. The only jarring elements for me are the experiments with irregular bar lengths in the intros to “Kurt Cobain” and “Future music”, both of which are instrumental sections which feel irrelevant to the song they’re attached to. “Kurt Cobain” throws in the odd bar of 9 beats which keeps on rebooting the song’s 4/4 with a lurch, only hitting the infectious chord sequence a minute in. “Future music” kicks off with a meandering bassline to a count of 10 which doesn’t really play to the band’s strengths.
According to frontman Mark the lyrics only come together in the day before recording, and the vocals have a don’t-give-too-much-of-a-fuck air about them, recalling the newer crop of scuzzy indie-grunge bands like DOLFINZ or PAWS. The lyrics which stick out are basic in sentiment – “I just want to be somewhere else / What the fuck am I doing here?” he sings in “Party Riffs”, or “I can’t believe the time that we have wasted / On a girl with no class and who is tasteless” in “Kurt Cobain”. Overall the contrast between bouncy, poppy garage punk and his stoned-sounding drawled baritone is one of the band’s strong calling cards. If he does sound like Kurt Cobain it’s the MTV Unplugged version (“Jeezuuuum don waaan me for a sunbeeeeam”) rather than the vocal cord shredder of “Bleach”…
The last song “Shifters” is the pick of the bunch, ultra simple and super catchy, its Technicolour chorus riff conjuring images of the hi-jinx / pranks section of a skate video.