THE EIGHTIES MATCHBOX B-LINE DISASTER

"I WANNA FUCK YOUR MOTHER..." I saw the ridiculously named Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster in Leeds on the same bill as the Parkinsons and Ikara Colt. "...it's a dirty job but someone's got to do it well." Their unique and interesting sound rests primarily on an array of twisted riffs, spitted out by the guitarists, and a truly original vocalist who mainly switches between cartoonish Jon Spencer drawl and gothic growls, with hoarse yelps and crys interspersed at key moments. The album as a whole is about as dark as they come with the demonic vocals revelling in the paranoid and disturbed lyrics and the band delivering contorted but often repetitive backing music. "You're feeling your way through the dark but you can't get out" is repeatedly pounded into your brain on "Psychosis Safari". The musicians are actually subtly understated at times with the drummer able to spruce up the songs with intelligent fills and the rockabilly bass-line of "Chicken" almost passes you by due to the intense nature of the guitar onslaught and tortured vocals. Most surprisingly the EMB-LD are an exciting and clever contemporary rock band that hails from England - Brighton, no less. Typically they're hardly troubling the charts and still haven't progressed from the usual dives UK bands start touring at but there is no doubt they deserve more. On the negative side, this album is barely an album at all (twenty five minutes is more suggestive of an EP, to me, although it still fits in ten songs) and even then it sometimes feels a little repetitive. Not that they're one-trick ponies but the arrangements aren't massively varied and the sound of the band is fairly uniform throughout. Perhaps a few of the songs are carried on aggression and violence alone but the interesting vocal tricks of "Giant Bones" (featuring a distinctive whoop for a chorus) and the insane falsetto for the verse of "Fishfingers" at least make up for an occasional gulf in proper songwriting. "Charge the Guns", on the other hand, bears more than a passing resemblence to the dreaded filler, which is a particularly disappointing aspect on such a short album. You can't help but think they should have delayed recording an album until they had more material available as the good stuff on here is very good indeed. Their first single, I believe, was "Morning Has Broken" (or at least that's what they were promoting when I went to see them) and is instantly memorable amongst the sometimes incomprehensible carnage. Again it is based upon repetitive rhymes and rhythms but it is pulled off perfectly with a distinctive riff echoing the line "he was born on a Christmas day" and the driving chorus "I wanna live my life making love". Second single was opening track "Celebrate Your Mother" and, again, it was an accurate choice as it is one of the more instantly memorable tracks and plays to the band's strengths with its rumbling bass, twisted guitars and half-drawled, half-yelped vocals. Generally not all the material is quite strong enough, and the album is not long enough and yet still sometimes repetitive, but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt simply on the basis it is so great hearing such aggressive and exciting rock music being produced by a British band. Obviously I abhor patriotism but you should buy this album regardless. "Your country needs you - you gotta act like a man." I couldn't have put it better myself.

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Email me at: jackfeeny@yahoo.co.uk