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I have this ideal that the perfect band would be a four
piece, I just sticks in the back of my mind that three is never enough and five
is too many. It’s a completely irrational and wholeheartedly unfounded
suggestion that somehow manages to nag away with an element of success; it’s a
damned hypothesis that is blown out of the water by The Jam, Nirvana,
Clayhill, and Busted repeatedly, but it still manages to crawl
back from under some bloody stone and make me feel uneasy.
I Am Kloot are perhaps the biggest and best reason
to dispel this myth of anti-three-piece-ness, and here they do so with two songs
that couldn’t differ more if you’d paired Cliff Richard with Motorhead for a
cheeky double A side. The record in question is the bands first new material
since this years epic adventures in lo-fi that was the Gods and Monsters
album, and initially it’s quite a departure from the fragile acoustica that set
offered. Maybe I Should is a much more caustic affair which rasps along
with a pounding rhythmic guitar line and furious, if even tempered drumming
before breaking down and exploding into what in the good old days we used to
call a cracking middle eight, of course then the pounding resumes and drives the
song towards its somewhat abrupt end. It’s frighteningly exhilarating and
purposely short, it’s over before you know it, with a flash and a bang and sure
fire intent. It leaves you, as all the best songs do, desperate for more,
gagging and foaming at the mouth – don’t they make 12” versions anymore.
B-Side Strange Little Girl is a more refined
offering, and would not have been out of place on the aforementioned Gods and
Monsters album – so much so that I’m left wondering if this was an out-take
or a left over that maybe didn’t fit the whole scheme of things but was too good
to be dropped completely. A simple story, luscious yet unflambuoyant guitar
lines, nice neat melodies, a perfect couple minutes to end any day with. Perfect
indie wistfulness, one of those songs that we have all lived through, but it
takes the genius of Johnny Bramwell to stand up and say it, and when he does,
it’s over in a heartbeat.
Perfect, perfect, perfect.
Johnny Mac
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