Grim stuff indeed from the aptly named Non Non conformists on their debut album, who seem delight in deepening themselves in the festering and decaying scabs of despair and grudge bearing dismissiveness. Admittedly due care and attention might well be the order of the day especially for the casual consumer track titles such as ‘Why is Everything so Shit’, ‘This Is Shit’ (very New Fast Automatic Daffodils, I’m happy to say – and a second mention for Manchester’s finest in as many days – I feel a retrospective coming on) and the daddy of them all ‘You Think You’re the Bollocks but you’re a Cunt’ (a title so impressive and sadly true of some I know that I feel a t-shirt is in the offing) might well sadly serve as red flags warding them off purchase.
Now I won’t pull any punches in saying this is an easy ride, their sound comes etched in the kind of sparse angular minimalism that once upon a time was a trademark of such legendary imprints as Step Forward, fast product and Factory while sound wise touching base to concoct a curious cocktail assembled from the parts of the Fall, Section 25, the Birthday Party (not last as evidenced on ‘Me and my Fuck up my Life Tic’ is just pure undiluted harrowing bleakness cocking in ‘Junkyard’ groove), decoration and Artery where within ‘Warm me Up’ a curious likeness blisters with dark seduction.
Elsewhere both ‘There is no such Thing in Life as no More’ and ‘there’s Nothing you can do About it now’ are pure classic no wave experimentalism, the first a dour Dadaist mantra which translates literally as the title repeated over and over again by a solitary voice the latter a similar technique with the rest of the band taking turns to join in on the miserablism. When they wanna kick ass they go full throttle with both ‘I’m Seeing the Possibility of it All’ and ‘What if I Can’t’ going all youthful Wedding Present albeit with noses a bloodied by the Jesus and Mary Chain. But then it shows the measure of a band when they can pull from the fire something quite extraordinary as ‘Say it Nicely’ which aside making a very late stab for favourite track of the year manages to feed itself till sick upon an Arab Strap tweaked Tindersticks banquet. Guess we’ll have to nail one of those vinyl variants now.
[Rating:4]
