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| Ikara colt – Chat and Business Fantastic Plastic Stick these on repeat – ‘Sink Venice’, ‘Pop Group’, ‘City of Glass’, ‘At the Lodge’. Ikara colt are the kind of band you need and want, the kind of band the Manics USED to be, young, intelligent, pissed off and making a fucking noise about it. Luckily their debut album is no less vital. Second single one note opens the album, and basically, if it doesn’t make you want to stand up and start jumping about like a thing possessed you have no rock n roll in your soul. ‘Rudd’s obviously ace, no question, a compilation tape staple (well for me anyway) and probably the most accessible track on the album. ‘Bishops Son’ is by far the darkest track, it’s the kind of song that gets under your skin and stays in your head, relentless guitar, scary deathlike uninterested vocals and primal drumming. Joy Division-esq ‘City of Glass’ proves that Ikara colt can do slower stuff just as effectively as they do riot-inducing shout/scream alongs like ‘Pop Group’. This is one of the first albums in a long time where the bands influences aren’t constantly staring you in the face. Sure, you can hear echoes of the fall throughout, and the ghost of huggy bear on ‘Here We Go Again’ and ‘Belgravia’, but at no point do you feel like you are listening to a tribute album, or a band with their heads stuck firmly in the past and up their own arses. Everything about this album is pretty near flawless, from the stark colours of the packaging to the songs themselves, you even get escalate as a secret track and the whole album fits on one side of a tape. Any criticisms? Well, being able to know what the majority of the lyrics are would be nice, but apart from that, I’d say chat and business is an excellent album and a fucking fantastic debut. Jo |
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