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A superb 17 track compilation from them nice dudes responsible for the online ‘zine Screaming Tarts. Volume one is the first of four available sets - the fourth literally just hot off the presses and no doubt sure to do some hi-fi damage of its own has just been ordered for the losing today shoe shuffle shed. Featuring the cream of (mostly) unsigned talent to be found on the underground scene right this minute - these Screaming Tarts sessions are vacuum packed slabs of top drawer prime slices of groove devoid of fillers and show boaters, instead ablaze of tomorrows contenders in waiting.
Admittedly this little cutie reared its head in 2005 - but hell - 1. It buzz saws like a real bastard mother 2. You can still get and 3. Do we really need a reason for reviewing something aside its obvious dogs bollocks appeal.
Ariel X open the proceedings, the brooding ’With you’ unwraps restlessly in choking hazes of blistering and festering sores, like a loose limbed Muse riddled with Radiohead’s psychosis and threaded with swamp infested Zep codas making this something of a black sun powered anthem. Up next are London based trio Planet of Women, ’I don’t care’ is a stunning and raucously rampant slice of potently bruised and buckled garage boogie, riffs pilfered from Zep’s ’Misty mountain hop’ being beaten senseless by a seriously pissed off Babes In Toyland with a demented period pain suffering Tina Turner plugged into the national grid like vocal - wilfully infectious - debut album due shortly - nuff said. Culled from their debut album ’the path to the silent country’ New Cross quartet Nebraska‘s ’anhedonia’ recalls principally Gene from yesteryear now out on a limb, undone, with their backs against the wall bleached and frazzled against a backdrop of spidery scab picking riffs - very tasty if you ask me - we will be searching that album before very long.
Three piece Rachel Stamp - who to be honest we’re not sure are still around these days - have a plethora of killer releases tucked under their collective belt - ’queen of the universe’ is an all at once sexy, slinky and sassy little mother of a cut fusing superbly garage and glam into a floor throbbing rumba replete with nods to Bolan and drilled deliciously with some of the dirtiest riffs to have sneaked out of Detroit under a hub cap cover. TAT who we haven’t heard anything by since their ‘Champagne Cocaine’ single from a while back charge in with the playfully punked up power pop ditty ‘live for rock’ - a skanking baby that to these ears sounds like Girlschool with a touch of the Joan Jett’s about its person. With squalling riffs that sound like fingers nails being dragged slowly down a blackboard Kinesis’ ‘everything you thought you would be’ is a deliciously discordant dish of unravelling amassed psychosis stirring hysteria chilled through with warping corteges of disorientating symphonic pyrotechnics.
Sadly we have absolutely bugger info about Plan A but their neat line in Wipers meets ‘Bleach’ era Nirvana as though delivered from the front by Leatherface’s Frankie Stubbs suggests that we ought to investigate more and pretty damn sharpishly. At Risk another ensemble for whom we can find absolutely diddly squat about carve out some rather tasty chill some austere post punk effects laden atmospheric groove primed with double tracked female vocals that overall dips somewhere between the Passions and pink Military. Welsh heavy rock combo Locus of Control are sadly no more - the band having split last year - which pretty leaves ’The Comfort of Repetition’ as an epitaph of sorts - think early career Jetplane Landing od’ing on Killing Joke.
With a title like ’sugar rush’ you’d be right in expecting some pretty hot slice of feel good effervescent pop and D Models don’t disappoint, slamming fuzzed up groove that sounds like the Belle Stars evil twins with Spector’s anti-hero alter ego at the controls concocting dastardly buzz sawing bubblegum pop. And did we just inadvertently mentioned anti - hero well here are Anti -Hero - a tongue twist take on Queens of the Stone Age’s ’feel good hit’ - ’feelbad hit of summer’ is a shade wearing gritty psyche gem that could easily have fell from the grooves of a ’Pebbles’ compilation - think Baby Woodrose in a face off with Autumn Leaves. Recently found to be much loved in our Singled Out shed for their rather snazzy ‘Analogue Dialogue’ - electro-pychists Scarlett Soho serve up ’we must destroy’ - decorated in strutting riffs and a seriously chilled austere grip this streamlined stripped to the bone slice of icy glamour fuses elements of early career A Flock of Seagulls with a psychotically tainted Gene Loves Jezebel.
Joanovarc are a three piece lady combo based in London who serve up frenetic splintered grind at the drop of an hat. ’live rock ’n’ roll’ replete with jabbing riffs and a manic underpin bedecked with Maiden-ish solos is the kind of caustic no nonsense toe tapping eye poking scuzzed up pop that hi-fi’s hag around all day hoping you’ll terrorise them with - file under L7 meets Suzi Q with a shedload of attitude. Weirdest cut of the compilation by some distance is Sack Trick’s barking ’Almost Human’ A blissed out and fried homage of sorts to the wig flipping halcyon days of the late 60’s, like some drug fueled Zappa meets Waits in an alternative universe beating out (or should that be beating up) slabs of wired psychedelic hotrod funk - we worry - proud parents of a handful of albums which we feel we really should check out for fear of spontaneously combusting - one of which is a tribute thing to Kiss - which is causing a certain amount of concern here - the group incidentally appears to play home to half the population of North London (that’ll be the half that haven’t so far been invited to join ….they came from the stars in recent memory. Casual observers of our Singled Out dithering may well remember us being quite fond of this lots ’I don’t wanna go to school’ debut - ’britain’s great’ is more snotty noised petulant pogo puking punk metal - the nods to the Makers and Black Halos still obvious - hey and who cares - good call though this time though this time at into the mix the crunching comedy licks of Alice Cooper - damn fine if you ask me.
Final cuts of the set come courtesy of AntiProduct and Maple Bee. The former whose ’better than this’ sounds like a mutant Alice in Chains / Killing Joke fusion trying out for the Rocky Horror Show while Maple Bee’s ’hello eve’ provides the compilation with its best cut by far. Decorated by delicate rustic flurries, noire-ish violas and tenderly scarred by the gentle persuasion of clicks and crackles this arresting slice of ghostly folk pop is darkly romantic and cut to perfection by a vocal that we swore at one point had been plundered from a discarded and previously unknown demo track from a very youthful Kate Bush - an absolutely disarming gem of some measure - All About Eve fans will think they’ve died and gone to heaven. An album ‘chasing eva’ is very much on the top of our wants list.
Buy.
www.screamingtarts.com
Prime slices
Maple Bee - hello eve
Planet of women - I don’t care
Scarlett soho - we must destroy
Sack trick - almost human
MARK BARTON
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