It is difficult not to feel some kind of affection for East London’s Love Buzzard. On the one hand, they sound like the support band has failed to turn up, and the venue manager has hastily collared a hatful of drunks and layabouts from the city’s seedy underbelly, sat them behind drum kits, furnished them with guitars and yelled “Play!” in a desperate bid to rescue the evening. On the other hand, sometimes, they have the defiant attitude of the MC5, thousand yard stares befitting of The Sonics, and occasionally, they cook up a song like ‘Heaven’s Got An Electric Fence‘, which is like all the above in a bar room brawl with The Hives.
They have an interesting way of promoting themselves, the Love Buzzard boys. One glance at their Facebook page displays the comment “Get yer hands on our debut album, it’s absolute shite“. Obviously, we’re not supposed to take that comment seriously (at least I think not!), as you can positively feel the fusty sweat dripping from the pores of Antifistamines throughout, as it throbs with a brash energy, brutal…Black Flag meets The Exploited in a bad tempered exchange down the local boozer. But then it would be unfair to paint them merely as dirty garage/punk scene footnotes, for they do their best to tether as many genres to their bat as they can conceivably muster.
‘Passion‘ is Anthrax meets the B-52’s or Devo, while ‘Superglue‘ has the bawdiness of Slade, the feral gnarl of The Stooges and a knowing smirk which implies the band are well aware that their capabilities stretch far beyond that which is initially apparent. I should imagine that a Love Buzzard gig is an absolute riot. You know, some bands I’ve been to see, the audience has been so lethargic, you probably could have set up a dinner table in the front row and had a three course meal with nobody noticing. With Love Buzzard, you get the feeling they’d leap over the railings, pour your hot soup and croutons down your underpants and slap your banoffee cheesecake right in the middle of your stupid face. And that rather bizarre tangent I just took has led me to recognise which band it is that Love Buzzard most remind me of – the now sadly defunct Israeli shock rockers Monotonix.
Back when I was a teenager, and an avid Pixies fan, if I was upset or angry about something, all I needed to do was grab hold of my copy of Doolittle and blast ‘Tame‘ out at an ear piercing volume. The world seemed, in that moment, a better place. I suspect Love Buzzard may provide the same therapy for this nation’s future generations.
Antifistamines was released on 1-2-3-4 Records on 12th February 2016
