The Bordellos – Debt Sounds (Small Bear Records)
CD / DL
Out Now
8 / 10
John Peel would have loved The Bordellos. He would have loved their unwillingness to
confirm, he would have loved their brutal honesty. He would possibly have repeat played them
like Teenage Kicks or, pulled over into a layby to sob in happiness as he did
with Pearly Dewdrops’ Drops. He would
invite them to the studio to record session upon session and he would sit next
to John Walters aurally orgasming at their sound.
So what is so special about the The Bordellos? In reality there is often nothing special and
that is probably their strong point, they stand out because they are not shiny,
clinical or crystal clear. They stand
out because they are what they are (and what they are needs no excuses). They use emotion and feeling, and that is
surely what music is all about.
There are aggressive melodies fighting to break free from
every track and some may say that they’re anti-music, others echoes of punk –
they may be right, they may be wrong – and that is the real beauty of The Bordellos
with no-one knowing what they are or what they want to be. They evoke memories of adolescence and
growing up into adulthood, wanting to play in a band and make music at any cost
as long as the passion and drive is there.
You might not hear their influences: The Shangri-Las, Scott
Walker, Julian Cope et all, but in the same way that The Beach Boys pushed
boundaries on Pet Sounds, this tribute of sorts sees how much four lads from St
Helens can do the same thing from the other end of the scale. The Bordellos make music like there’s no
tomorrow, song after song after song, always something different around the
corner.
There were certain criteria that frontman Brian Bordello
gave the band, all vocals being first take, the songs were freshly written and
never heard by the band before and, tracks completed every Friday night for ten
weeks until the album was ‘finished’.
There is tape hiss, there are fumbled fondles, there are tales of romantic
failure and observations as to the fate of Rolf Harris many years before recent
revelations.
From the feedback induced, subtle yet disturbing sounding
Fading Honey to I May Be Reborn which borders on beautiful and an almost
perfectly crafted song, and the backbiting Dead Friend Don’t Leave Me Hanging
with its attack on the inevitable fall of the music industry, Debt Sounds is a
quite remarkable collection. It’s about
you, me and everyone.
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