Ezra Bang & Hot Machine - White Power / Pussy Got 9 Lives [Single]

Gold Swine

July 21, 2009, 05:42 PM

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Well it has to be said, if nothing else 'Ezra Bang & Hot Machine deserve credit for having the balls to get up on stage night after before Public Enemy and shout "WHITE POWER" at the assembled masses. Of course it's an ironic statement but the connotations it brings with it are pretty nasty. Anyway onto the music.

What we have here is deep, dirty, electro hip-pop which on first listen sounds almost like a sanitised Warren Suicide, there's more to it than that though, there's a pop sensibility here that New York born Ezra has obviously tried his hardest to disguise to little avail.

Track 1, 'White Power' is a real beast, all clanging drums, distorted keyboards and decidedly pissed off vocals. The energy here is electric as our man Ezra gives a performance that would make Black Francis proud. It's a a catchy, demanding song with a deliciously quirky edge which off-sets the less than stellar production values. The keyboards are a little cheesy in places and that punishing synth bass isn't quite as loud as it should be but the immediacy of the song still shines through. The lyrics might be a little crass in places (I struggle to see any pathos in the line "I wanna fuck with her when she bleeds") but the good lines far out-weigh the bad.

"Pussy Got 9 Lives" as far as I can tell is an attack on modern trendiness, the music industry and it's inherit dichotomy and is even better than "White Power". It sounds like vintage Stooges pissing around with synthesisers with Chuck D on lead vocals, of course it's not QUITE as good as that sounds but it's pretty damn impressive, a dance floor filler if I ever heard one.

On this evidence the subtle hype building up around this band is not nearly enough, it's an assault on the senses which manages to batter the shit out of you without ever being even remotely unlistenable.

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