I was going to say that when that gnarly, noisy opening salvo comes roaring over the sonic horizon, you realize that the emphasis on “Punchline Blues” is, perhaps, more on the “Punch” than the word “Blues.” But then, having set up your expectations, Lurcher does the old switcheroo, and the song is caught by a swampy, bluesy, claustrophobic, sonic underrow and dragged into the depths of the sonic bayou. Blues indeed…well, of a sort.
Of course, playing to listeners’ expectations is not Lurcher’s game, and having pulled the rug out from under you, they do it again and are soon back in the eye of the musical maelstrom, guitars raging, beats seismic, basslines brilliantly bombastic, and then, before you have had time to re-re-adjust… blam! It’s done, and all you are left with are frayed nerves, an echo of the beat ravaging your senses, and the sound of “Punchline Blues” disappearing on the breeze.
It’s punk in the same way that The Fall was punk, too clever, too full of ragged artistry, too truly antagonistic, too real, too rebellious, too part of the pack, and too ahead of the game for others to keep up. “Punchline Blues” is the musical equivalent of brutalistic architecture, its beauty found in unconventional moves and grooves – controversial, imposing, undeniable.
And if music always contains, in its DNA, something of the place it comes from, in Lurcher’s uncompromising approach and this single’s sonic demeanour, it isn’t hard to feel the bite of the grey, maritime landscape and the tough environs of the North East that birthed them both.
