Labels: Hope Followed By Despair
Review by: Alex Deller
Odd, loping, disconsolate stuff that could conceivably be hypnotic if it wasn’t so gosh-darn uncomfortable. The first song has a pianowire riff stretched cruelly out and repeated to the point of breaking, this being accompanied by indistinct hollering and a coating of mushy, grey, drizzly sound the colour of once-white socks that’ve been through the wash far too many times. The second one has an impudent, cocksure, sailor-on-shore-leave gait that I’m not quite sure it deserves while the third takes up the whole of side b with the saddest, weariest trudge I’ve heard in quite some time. While much of the aesthetic is reminiscent of noise-rock, the overall sound is more washed-out, blurry and vague, seeming to take in Scratch Acid, Wilderness, Swans and The Fall without ever really nailing their colours to one particular mast. Interesting, for sure, though it’s an even split as to whether an LP’s worth would prove wonderful or eye-gougingly interminable.