CLEOPATRA RECORDS 28th July 2023
Mega-fun side-project from Rat Scabies and Billy Shinbone (Jesse Budd) combines Ennio Morricone, Barry Gray and Jodorowsky. It’s a bundle of twangy guitar, from the Spaghetti Western to Surf to Hawaiian, infused with essential silliness and playful drumming. It’s unexpected and yet not surprising from Flipron’s guitarist and The Damned’s drummer. What is more surprising is this is their second album, having slipped one past me in 2020.
There’s is Tarantino-esque pop in ‘Too Much Time’, the Spaghetti western twang of the wonderfully titled ‘If You Don’t Want To Watch This Don’t Open Your Eyes’, whistling and handclaps on the instrumental ‘Ultra Splendid’ (most of the tracks are instrumentals) and ‘Origami Chainsaw’ suddenly reminds me of Mike Patton’s Fantomas. ‘The Colonel’ gets more menacing with mention of boiling someone’s liver. And so it goes. Lots of style, lots of musical poses and costumes, plenty of cool and plenty of OTT daft.
This is an imagined American sound, filtered through the pop culture obsessions and cultural filters of two English psychedelic musicians into something woozily twisted. The set features a little raft of guests, on vocals or otherwise: Zumi Rosow, Kid Congo Powers, The 5.6.7.8’s, Roger Chapman, etc but is very much the product of two men having fun and indulging their personal tastes – net result: satisfying psychedelic fun.