SICKY - Garbage Town (self-released)

Things I like: Self-deprecating artist names and album titles. Pop music that doesn’t realize that it is pop music. Pop music that strives to be more than pop. Music that explores the darker underbelly of modern life. Music which remembers to have fun. Great grooves. Music that doesn’t feel part of a scene but which is happy to travel its own pathways. Literate lyricism. Songs that make you think.

It’s why I love Garbage Town, the second album from black country artist SICKY, so much. (So important to the current music scene that you only see his name in upper case!) It may be the fact that his musical resume is so eclectic and changeable. Perhaps he thinks in unique ways. But, no matter how he got here, the musical world is all the better for it.

The previous single, “The Bridge”, which kicks things off, is both dark and poppy, effortlessly accessible and groovesome, and immediately reminds you of The Manic Street Preachers had they opted to woo the pop charts rather than burning down modern culture. That said, Garbage Town is not short on revolutionary ideas; they are just presented in a less rabble-rousing framework.

“Sleep On It” is funky and staccato-spiked with no shortage of Blockheads vibes woven into its DNA, “None Of That” has an almost nursery rhyme feel to it, especially if it had been written by someone who had spent years in ska bands and wanted to frighten the children and the title track is dense, dark, doom-ladened and slightly demented.

A great album, and although musical reference points aren’t hard to find when taken as a whole, it is as unique as it is infectious, not to mention totally necessary in the modern music climate. It’s the album you didn’t realize you were waiting for, the one you didn’t know you couldn’t live without.

Order the album
Spotify
Garbage Town
Spotify
The Bridge
Spotify