Dara Higgins checks out the latest singles from Greece’s The You And What Army Faction and our own The #1s.
The #1s – I Wish I Was Lonely / He’s Too Good For Everyone Else But He’s Not Good Enough For You
First Irish release for Cork based indie label Art For Blind is a double a side 7″ from Dublin pop-punkers The #1s. I Wish I Was Lonely starts off with a “one, two, three, four..” in the greatest of punky traditions, and launches into a two and a half minutes of garage-y pop, in the vein of Bram Tchaikovsky or Nick Lowe. The nods and winks are all in the right place, with the splashing drums and jangle of guitars neatly underpinned by Cian Nugent’s melodic bass playing.
He’s Too Good For Everyone Else But He’s Not Good Enough For You is the chorus of the other track. Like it’s flip side, it’s catchy, thrashy punk. It’s a bit more pogo than the other track. And in less than 5 minutes, we’re done. Here’s some lads who believe in the inherent redundancy of pop music, citing a love of one-hit-wonders in their press. They do indeed, right down to the production, sound like this wax was found in a box of old sevens in the attic and accidentally ‘rediscovered’. The great lost band of right now? Perhaps that’s going too far, but they prove that there’s more to the past than peado moustaches, rolling your sleeves up Don Johnston styles and putting loads of spacey reverb on your synths.
The You And What Army Faction – Silk 7″
Let’s have a big argument about political turmoil, and the music it creates. Take Ireland, for example, we’re mired in a recession that makes the sinking of Atlantis look like Butlins, and our scribes have taken to the Twitters to articulate the rage about Bon Jovi playing at Slane. Singer-songwriters nurdle about crows and onanism, as per, and no one is standing there, shirt off, blood specked self administered tattoos glistening, microphone down own gullet, screaming “Lowry is a cunt!” Why is this? Why don’t we have a punk rock movement, a real one? WHY?
So, how’s the rest of the Europe reacting? Well, Greece have The You And What Army Faction, and they have the Silk 7″. With drenched, distant vocals, it’s hard to know exactly what they think of their own austerity measures, but the music sure is dark. Over some weird-jazz drums and wandering bass, many guitars, it seems, scrape out a space-scape of noises. When Keep Calm It’s Only Deathneck (what a title, lads) builds up, and the cymbals begin to smash, it makes lascivious promises of proper rock that it does not deliver. Rock teasers.
This is proper weird stuff, that reminds me of Clint Ruin or some Coil stuff, without any samples, just washing shards of guitar. They sound like they really don’t give a fuck what Jon Bon Jovi is up to.
http://theyouandwhatarmyfaction.bandcamp.com/album/silk.
