Funny thing: when The Jukes sent an email to the Nightshift editor about my review, one of their points was that this website wasn't very popular. Since then, the review in question has comfortably become the most viewed page on here in recent memory, and most people seem to have been linked ffrom Facebook. The Jukes' Facebook? Or just a coincidence? I've no idea, but it's sort of intriguing.
Oh, and yes, I am unpopular. That's how you can tell I'm good.
SMILEX/ THE CELLAR FAMILY/ DEER CHICAGO, Coo Coo Club, Jericho, 2/3/12
We saw Deer Chicago a few years ago, and were impressed. Since then they’ve delivered on their potential, and got very slightly worse. Their sound has improved enormously, and is now a huge cascade of emotive noise that fair tumbles out of them. They’re capable of glistering crescendos, but sometimes we wish they’d vary the dynamics, and step away from the screaming stadium in their minds, to regain some of the subtlety of old. All this epic swooning is like super-strong Bavarian lager they sell in your local dodgy cornerstore: doubtless intoxicating, but not big on delicate flavours. A very good band, then, but perhaps not the one we expected them to become, which is out fault, not theirs.
The Cellar Family are less a band, more an annoying muscular twitch in sonic form. Tonight, they play beautifully, lancing their music’s scabrous boils with razor punk incisions, and flooding The Jericho with horrific, visceral imagery delivered with scientific coldness. It’s like a cross between Weird Tales and The Lancet, all buoyed aloft by wittily slurred guitar and snidely forceful rhythms. Humdrum punks take note: everyone can sneer, but only a band like this can actually communicate disgust.
Smilex are celebrating a decade of nefarious activity, balancing on a latex tightrope strung between twin poles of grubby punk sleaze and dumb cock rock preening. Whilst it’s tempting to dismiss Smilex as an eager panting puppy amongst rock beasts – gags like Motley Cruecut and Judas Verger would be almost too easy – tonight’s gig reminds you of just how good they are. Lee Christian, of course, embodies his stage school punk persona, dressed as Kenny Everett in the Blue Oyster Club, but his vocal yelps and drawls really do carry the songs well. The band spends a lot of time throwing rock shapes that probably moved from parody to habit nine years ago, but by Christ they can kick out a squall. As with Deer Chicago, it’s always best to take Smilex on their own terms. The way to have a bad time at their gigs would be to imagine what a band of this much ability and stage presence could achieve if they had any taste. The way to have a good time is to neck a crème de menthe spritzer and dive into the nearest wall of flesh. Who could complain about ten years of that?
Showing posts with label The Cellar Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Cellar Family. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Basement, How Low Can You Go?
Speaking of Big Bang Theory, as we were, it reminded me of Friends. Not the jokes, just the architecture. Do all apartment buildings in America have a large flat on the left of the staircase, and a smaller one on the right? Seems an odd design. Also, can people weho make their money as waiters, physics researchers, occasional actors, cooks, and so on really afford these lopsided apartments?
And why do they both loook like a set from Space Hulk from the corridor, huge grey reinforced doors and dingy corridors? They look lovely from the inside.
Hmmm....
THE CELLAR FAMILY – FLAB EP (Download)
“I am an anarchist”.
Punk is about the antisocial, whether it’s Johnny Rotten’s heroic, neo-Romantic reactionary stance, painting himself as a twisted urchin version of Milton’s Satan, or your bog standard punk tearaway, using rebellion as an excuse to get smashed and not wash (and the hippies already had that down, ironically). The Cellar Family, comfortably one of the best acts to emerge from Oxford in the past two years, have a far more interesting take. On this EP, from the awkward Thomas the Tubercular Tank Engine chuffing of the opening, to the closing greasy feedback 17 minutes later, the tone is not antisocial, but asocial.
Like Seven’s reverse-Buddhist villain John Doe, or a slightly deranged Nazi scientist, the narrative voice of a Cellar Family song balances visceral disgust with a rigorously dispassionate eye: it’s no coincidence that the EP is bookended by tracks called “Oestrogen” and “Testosterone”. This is not a love song, it’s a bloody biology lesson. Possibly extremely bloody. In a gallery of sociopathic rogues, “My Love Is Everlasting” may well tell of a deranged serial rapist-murderer (whatever, it certainly won’t be on Julio Iglesias’ setlist any time soon), and “Secret Admirer” is a stalker’s paean, crooning “nobody watches you more than I do”, along with a dubious celebration of “child-bearing hips”, which can’t help but bring to mind P J Harvey. Alternating between moments of dark comedy and harrowing viscerality, The Cellar Family has found a new way of embodying punk’s antagonistic stance.
Likewise, the music has more going on than might be immediately obvious in a bludgeoning punk racket. The drums are frantic yet tight, tumbling through the songs like Karl Burns on the early Fall recordings, and the way that Jamie Harris’ guitar slurs and bends the rhythms remind us unexpectedly of Graham Coxon on later Blur albums. This record shows how many more ideas TCF have beyond the punk template. “My Love Is Everlasting” is a spiky update of The Blue Orchids’ spindly groove, whereas “What Did I Ever Do To You?” is a wash of reverse reverb vocals, sub-aquatic bass and misty drums that sounds an awful lot like Pram, until the dyspeptic burst of the chorus rears its head briefly. Whilst Mclusky is still an obvious reference point, The Cellar Family have developed enough to offer a lyrical grimace and musical inventiveness all their own, and have possibly made one of Oxford’s records of the year in the process.
And why do they both loook like a set from Space Hulk from the corridor, huge grey reinforced doors and dingy corridors? They look lovely from the inside.
Hmmm....
THE CELLAR FAMILY – FLAB EP (Download)
“I am an anarchist”.
Punk is about the antisocial, whether it’s Johnny Rotten’s heroic, neo-Romantic reactionary stance, painting himself as a twisted urchin version of Milton’s Satan, or your bog standard punk tearaway, using rebellion as an excuse to get smashed and not wash (and the hippies already had that down, ironically). The Cellar Family, comfortably one of the best acts to emerge from Oxford in the past two years, have a far more interesting take. On this EP, from the awkward Thomas the Tubercular Tank Engine chuffing of the opening, to the closing greasy feedback 17 minutes later, the tone is not antisocial, but asocial.
Like Seven’s reverse-Buddhist villain John Doe, or a slightly deranged Nazi scientist, the narrative voice of a Cellar Family song balances visceral disgust with a rigorously dispassionate eye: it’s no coincidence that the EP is bookended by tracks called “Oestrogen” and “Testosterone”. This is not a love song, it’s a bloody biology lesson. Possibly extremely bloody. In a gallery of sociopathic rogues, “My Love Is Everlasting” may well tell of a deranged serial rapist-murderer (whatever, it certainly won’t be on Julio Iglesias’ setlist any time soon), and “Secret Admirer” is a stalker’s paean, crooning “nobody watches you more than I do”, along with a dubious celebration of “child-bearing hips”, which can’t help but bring to mind P J Harvey. Alternating between moments of dark comedy and harrowing viscerality, The Cellar Family has found a new way of embodying punk’s antagonistic stance.
Likewise, the music has more going on than might be immediately obvious in a bludgeoning punk racket. The drums are frantic yet tight, tumbling through the songs like Karl Burns on the early Fall recordings, and the way that Jamie Harris’ guitar slurs and bends the rhythms remind us unexpectedly of Graham Coxon on later Blur albums. This record shows how many more ideas TCF have beyond the punk template. “My Love Is Everlasting” is a spiky update of The Blue Orchids’ spindly groove, whereas “What Did I Ever Do To You?” is a wash of reverse reverb vocals, sub-aquatic bass and misty drums that sounds an awful lot like Pram, until the dyspeptic burst of the chorus rears its head briefly. Whilst Mclusky is still an obvious reference point, The Cellar Family have developed enough to offer a lyrical grimace and musical inventiveness all their own, and have possibly made one of Oxford’s records of the year in the process.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
