THE EIGHTIES MATCHBOX B-LINE DISASTER – Horse of the Dog (Island Records)

People might be put off this band because of the easy time they seemed to have had on their way to the ‘top’ and the way their image seems to be marketed above the music.  But how can anyone possibly distrust a band called the The Eighties Matchbox B Line Disaster, they’re not exactly going for a catchy, roll off the tongue name and they certainly don’t make music for the faint hearted.  Horse of the Dog is a grimy, sleaze ridden album that often falls out of tune and argues with itself.  It has the sound of a band who have been to hell and come back with some advice from the devil on how to make music that will really piss off the guv’nor. 

I certainly don’t think the man upstairs would be too happy to hear five deranged young men screaming “I’m gonna fuck your mother/ it’s a dirty job/ buts someones got to do it”.  It’s certainly a tall order for the rest of the album to kick off with Celebrate your Mother, a messy, brutal song that’s probably one of the tamer and more polite songs the Eighties have written.  But the plan succeeds, because next is the majestic, dirt bag of a tune Chicken, which gets another kick in while your down.  Guy McKnight sounds like he’s selling his soul to sing the blues before screaming the house down like a deranged wolf.  He constantly tries to keep up with the ferocious guitars and forceful drumbeat, which starts with the groove of Sabbath before gathering momentum with a down n dirty guitar riff spiralling off the tracks into a howling mess. 

NME’s term for this band, ‘swamp rock’, is for once a correct description of a bands sound.  The Eighties are a heaving mixture of blues played at warp speed and bootlegged Black Sabbath hooks.  Unlike many other rock n roll albums this year Horse of the Dog refuses to stick to a set formula, instead most of the verses fall into the chorus and that’s even if they’ve decided to have one.  The only distinct theme that attaches every song is that they gets faster and louder until they’re at bursting point.  The bass, drums and guitar often sound as though they’ve been squashed into a room too small to contain them and it’s hard to hear any particular musical talent, which many might see as a negative.  However, the guitar riffs that bubble away underneath this barrage of noise are downright sexy and the repetition makes you shake your ass and brings an element of order to the chaos.

This swamp sound continues through the trucking rawk of Fishfingers, a song from The Beatings school of hard rock.  The line “I keep thinking I’m of a different race, I keep falling all over the place” gives The Eighties image credence, what with their heavy drinking, drug intake and them being a bit odd and all.  This is not a record you’d play to send a child to sleep, if you did then they’re sure to have nightmares and dream of swamp monsters from the deep south.  Confirming this inaccessible vein that the band have is the stonking heavy metal Morning has broken, with the bass rattling through and over the drums.  It really does sound from another decade, one when people had big hair and leather pants – but it certainly has more intensity and passion than all the nu-metal bands put together.

The Eighties would probably be the first to say ‘don’t believe the hype’, because this isn’t a band who are made to be stadium straddling rock gods, they play rock n sludge for dirty rock kids and this is a fine debut.  Although they haven’t produced the most tuneful rock n roll album this year and probably not the best, it’s still got originality, enthusiasm and genuine passion absent from many bands of the moment.  If you must go to one of their gigs or buy this record, be careful and don’t let your mum anywhere near them. Chris Parkin.