The Victorian English Gentlemens Club - Love On An Oil Rig [Album]

This Is Fake DIY Records

August 5, 2009, 05:21 PM

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Mancunian misery guts Mark E Smith is seen by many as a cult icon, a figure who has managed to spend more than 30 years in the music industry without ever once coming close to wider public consciousness. The Fall are obviously a band Victorian English Gentleman's Club take a great deal of inspiration from as their skewed punk rock template is evident on nearly all the 12 tracks contained within the Welsh triplets second album 'Love On An Oil Rig'. The Pixies and Modest Mouse also mark obvious points of reference, with the shouty, cryptic lyrics occasionally making way for shards of melody amidst the chaos. It's an intense listen which holds together remarkably well and yet never really opens up enough to allow the listener to emotionally invest themselves in it.

Tight, angular guitars and dirty bass clang and shudder against loose rhythms and bitter, twisted vocals which can at times sound like temper tantrums (that's a good thing... I think). Lead vocalist Adam Taylor has the menace of the Cramps late front man Lux Interior in his razor sharp deliveries and his counterpoint Louise Mason (the Kim Deal to his Frank Black) off-sets her band-mates screeching with subtle nuances that add more to the music than one might initially expect. TVEGC are primarily a band built around rhythm and impact rather than melody but there ARE tunes here. Both 'Dog' and 'Parrot' compliment their break-neck verses with catchy chorus's and 'The Venereal Game' takes Future Of The Lefts buzzing fury one step further.

The gothic strangeness might put off casual music fans but there is a lot here to digest. The mad-cap drums of 'Watching The Burglars', the creepy backing vocals and creeping anti-melodies in 'Bored In Belgium' and the lurching, schizophrenic changes in 'Worker' are marks of a band who are in complete control. It might sound like a mess at times but it's a controlled chaos and is probably a lot more complicated than it sounds.

It could hardly be called an eclectic album but what it lacks in diversity it makes up for in cohesion and aggression. It's a discordant, awkward, sometimes messy record which is easy to appreciate and enjoy but very difficult to love, I'd imagine these guys are incredible live though.

Tracklisting:-
1. Love On An Oil Rig
2. Parrot
3. Watching The Burglars
4. Bored In Belgium
5. Periscope Envy
6. Worker
7. Driver's Companion
8. Women Versus Children
9. God Save Us From Being So Damn Primitive
10. Dog
11. The Venereal Game
12. I Say What I See

Recommended:-
Parrot, Watching The Burglars, Bored In Belgium, Driver's Companion, Dog, I Say What I See

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