Looking at the name of band and EP title here had me hoping for some nice vicious grindcore but the German group are alas far from that. What they play is described as “modern Psychedelic, Garage, and Alternativ Rock” and is unfortunately right on the very fringes of what we would class as acceptable for review, which honestly never goes down particularly well. Still a disc had been sent in and the 4 tracks are relatively short so the task is at hand to try and find something good about it all and see if it does fit remotely in with our modus-operandi. The group are apparently noted for getting some form of aplomb within the scene Whatever scene that is) “playing support for Japanese psych rockers Kikagaku Moyo as well as for Ratinger-Hof-Era acts Der Plan and Family5. I” Afraid I can’t say this enlightens me to things in any way at all but here we go.
The twang of opener ‘Opto Optics In Consciousness’ cites post punk and Joy Division, vocals are a tad mournful but hit more of an Indie side of things and there’s a definite commercial side to them. As Radiohead are tagged on the group’s Bandcamp I was not too surprised at this and there’s a bit of fuzz and grime about the guitar playing that just about endears me to this over its 4-minute running time. Hoping they can build on this we go into ‘Cardiac Insufficiency’ and wonder if they will do something heart-stopping. Well any Stooge who considers themselves a garage band should start out with learning a bass line from ‘Now I wanna be your dog’ and that’s exactly what we get along with a little keyboard twiddling which I guess fleetingly allows them the psychedelic tag. By now the vocal whine is annoying unfortunately and the short number appears to be just hinting at half baked ideas and throwing them together without anything going anywhere. ‘Science Fiction Movie’ well one would expect some excitement and good special effects from a title like this but we just get a bland ballad-esque plodder with little in the way of substance apart from a move to more of a pop melody. Coated in grey and drab though, I can’t see this garnering success in any medium. Last and longest number ‘Morning Metamorphosis’ Sees the German quintet moving even closer to home with an Indie Britpop Beatles etched melody divided up by sudden gallops into what to me sounds like a bit of a messy attempt at going down a punky Buzzcocks route. Basically, repeating the whole thing twice makes it doubly as painful and the attempt to mesh two disparate styles of music falls completely flat to my ears.
I’m sure someone, somewhere may like this but it’s definitely not me and I found the whole exercise of musical painting by numbers tired and uninspiring. This is the sort of band one may encounter as support to a big hitter and cling to the bar in the hope they will finish quickly. The one good thing about this CD is that it did just that.
(3/10 Pete Woods)
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