Any band that released its first album in 1983 and is still putting music out is a band to take notice of. So is any band described as “The Hulme Cramps.” Or any band that recorded four sessions for BBC’s legendary John Peel show in many years. Any band whose music echoes with that same rockabilly menace that made The Gun Club so great to behold is always going to be on my ones-to-watch list. Inca Babies tick all those boxes…and many more.
Although the first chapter of the Inca Babies story may have been a short, sharp, and shockingly creative episode half a lifetime ago, their sonic second act, which began with their reformation in 2007, has been even more fruitful.
The aptly named ninth album, Ghost Mechanic Nine, continues the band’s gothic, punk, death-rock, jazz-blues odyssey, heading into the liminal spaces between genres, exploring those dark reams found in the cracks in the musical landscape, those almost vacant points on the Venn Diagram.
What I love about Inca Babies, one of the many things, is that they are not trying to reinvent themselves. Sure, they move with the times, though, only according to their own brief, but as the titular bass-grooved, brooding, dark, and delicious opener proves, this band embraces the sound they are known for.
“Insect Symphony” is music made in the vein of bands like MC5 and The Stooges, with incendiary riffs and explosive salvos powered by relentless depth-charge bass runs, “The Exhaust of Broken Dreams” is a sort of gothic-soul meets darkwave disco vibe, and “Spacewalk” shows you exactly why they are compared to bands like The Cramps.
There is even room for a reworking of their live favorite “Opium Den,” now, thanks to the skills of producer Simon “Ding” Archer suitably retitled “Opium Dub” for obvious reasons.
Inca Babies is that rare thing, a band that sticks to its guns, a band that isn’t trying to reinvent itself to gain a different, broader, younger crowd (though that isn’t to say that they won’t attract them anyway) a band whose music echoes everything I loved about 80’s music while never once sounding like they are resting on their laurels. No, this is the sound of post-punk, for want of a better term, as if it was happening right here, right now, for the first time in 2024.
Ghost Mechanic Nine album
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Spacewalk single
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