ALBUM REVIEWS

The James Cleaver Quintet THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW HASSLE RECORDS Out now @www.vanguard-online.co.uk This is confusing…. and inspiring. Opening on a rubbery-bass punkabilly before turning into furious and shouty intensely tight indie with bits of screamo. That’s just the opening track. Track two is a bit more obvious modern screamy noise but the guitar lines lift it. One track runs straight into another, making this a full-on experience with no escape from the circling drums and rising choruses. At times they become a merely very good indie / underground / noisenik band but something strange keeps popping in to shake it up. At times the sound is packed with loads and loads of instruments, at other times the smoke clears to reveal one playing something that sounds like a free-jazz line. Or, on The JCWho, they play some lounge jazz. Pinks And Blues probably sums up the album, throwing in a few different tunes and switching time signatures and probably causing moshpit mayhem at gigs. Trading Water switches between furious punk and bits of jazz and radio-friendly refrain while a fuzzed up bass marks time. Eyes For Ears is just plain furious, quite incendiary. Then there are the song titles: Chicken Shit (For The Soul), Trading Water, Mock The Weak,Think Or Swim, Golfing Pros, Bitches And Hoes. Witty and, however slogan-y the lyrics might get, the verses are all but buried and the choruses all sound great and loud and clear. Proper air-punching stuff. It’s a proper mad experience this and demands to be turned up loud. If you wanted a summation of the album, listen to the last track, Lower Than A Bastard, which squeezes in all the elements over its eight-minute run. Ross McGibbon www.myspace.com/thejcq Email Links & Comments to the editor Check the latest album releases