I remember the first time I was faced with the mercurial, mad, and marvelous sonic experience that was The Fall. It was like being beaten over the head with a copy of the Manchester Evening News that had been wrapped around a bottle of nitroglycerine. It was a performance that you couldn’t exactly say you enjoyed, but you never forgot it either, the sort of gig you walked away from wanting to either form your band, form a cult or start a revolution. Probably all three.
I mention this because few bands have had the same profound and jarring effect on me, but I feel that Lurcher is singing from the same hymnsheet. (Although theirs has been ripped from the pages of The Socialist Worker or possibly Das Kapital.)
Ranting, there is no other word for it, about the evils of consumerism and the knee-jerk society worshiping at the cash-till ring that this self-aggrandising branch of capitalism has ushered in, they drive their rabble-rousing rhetoric via garage rock guitar riffs and wonky basslines, pummeling tribal beats and sonic aggression.
Imagine if Sleaford Mods had bothered to learn to play instruments or The Streets had actually had something worthwhile to say, or if Sonic Youth had grown up in County Durham. Actually, forget all that and give “Stone Island,” the band’s debut single, a few spins, and you’ll work it out. And then we can all meet in Greggs and start planning the revolution.
