Now this was a pleasant surprise. I know that in another recent review I said that dirty rock and roll guitars and lo-fi production didn’t really do it for me, but The Fleshies have both these things and they certainly push my buttons.
There’s touches of all that commercial ‘rock and roll’ that seems to have been so popular of late, the likes of Jet and The Libertines or whatever, but then there’s also flashes of brilliance in the vein of Jawbreaker or Bear Vs Shark. This combination generally makes for an invigorating listen.
‘There Will Be No Apocalypse’ has a fantastic little middle eight whereby the furious rock suddenly stops and a haunting, wailing interlude takes its place before rocketing back to normality before you’ve even noticed properly. ‘The Last Friday’ has an equal parts humorous equal parts inspired verse that sounds like some sort of 80’s new wave band playing slowed down punk with a castrated Mike Patton on vocals, while ‘Rosa’ takes on a much more straightforward approach, with a driving bassline and falsetto vocals. It’s this kind of variation that sets The Fleshies above other bands messing around with lo-fi indie rock these days.
Experimentation isn’t exactly rife within this disc, and it hardly strays from death metal to avant-garde synth pop in one quick swoop, but by taking their chosen genre and shaking it up a little, the effect is no less satisfying. Off key guitar parts, dramatic warbling and pounding bass lines go a long way to make ‘The Sicilian’ a fucking good album.
Granted, I doubt I’d listen to this too much out of choice if I hadn’t been forced to for the purposes of this review, but I can certainly see a few of these tracks turning up on future mix tapes. Which can only be a good thing.
Ross