Damn Pest
Rumble has had a very good review from Joey Sandinista at Damn Pest webzine, which we’re very pleased with.
They say beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, some argue this case for music also but in the modern indie conundrum there has to be some serious question marks over what certain people are subjecting themselves too. I have no respect or affinity for the Coldplay/Snow Patrol/Razorlight soulless shite that is churned out with such alarming regularity these days where too many people are obsessed with material status to even contemplate the central virtues of great music and the energy it can exude. Is great music therefore the preserve of the underclass or the revolutionary? This is a debate for another time but certainly as a bastion of the ‘modern life is shit brigade’ my empathy lies in bands like the Psychotic Reaction who question our minds and indulge our dark yet creative sides. You can therefore fuck the people who have 4 CDS in their rack and a thousand quid sound system who like nothing more than to unwind and ‘connect’ with a glass of wine and a bit of Mr Paltrow after a day churning meaningless figures in the City.
You only have to look at the bands influences to work out that this Whitstable three piece derive their thoughts and inspirations from the deeper plane of our consciousness. They have the edgy heartfelt pop songs of The Wedding Present, the warped 60s psychosis of the excellent Prisoners and the twisted yet unmistakably harmonious lo-fi sensitivities of My Bloody Valentine. This debut full length offering recorded mostly on analogue 4-track tape is not in the same league as the aforementioned bands just yet but it has enormous potential and is a completely worthwhile listening experience.
Due to lack of funds and time consuming dead-end jobs, ‘Rumble’ took quite a while to record but this is no bad thing as the finished product is a diverse melting pot of sounds, feelings and situations that are the antithesis of much of the one-dimensional non-descript albums on current offer. After a couple of introductory instrumentals of deranged slide guitar and swirling psychedelia, ‘What’s under the Stairs?’ erupts with the vocals of a Psychobilly Nick Cave, clattering chains, crashing guitars and spaghetti western acoustics. ‘ES-40’ sounds like a fucked up ‘Chinese Rocks’. The first of a series of telephone introductions beckons ‘Cocoon’ which is probably the most commercially accessible tune on the album sounding like Pulp but in a haunted ballroom. It is the diversity between the warped ghostly instrumentals and dark sophisticated pop which keeps me captivated and engrossed in this deformed monster of an album. ‘It’s a small town’ even delivers the classic that gives ‘Rumble’ the great debut accolade. As the rain and thunder is engulfing my small suburb of Belfast I can relate to the helplessness, despair and frustration that the song espouses and can snigger at the necessary wit that suburban dwellers must maintain to preserve sanity. ‘Now I’m living just to pay the rent, and festering in Kent.’
Catch The Psychotic Reaction at the Brixton Windmill on Saturday 3 September 2005