When you work ten years on taking a (let’s be honest) pretty weird math-rock band from the gutters to touring with a giant like Biffy Clyro, only to see the walls crumble in, what do you do?
If you’ve got any sense, you pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and start again.
&U&I is three of four from the already greatly missed Blakfish, and from the second ‘Kill The Man That Shot That Man’ kicks in, it’s aggressive, personal and frustrated both lyricaly and musically.
On first listen, you can tell exactly what Sam brought to the Blakfish table, and it’s weird to hear something not-incredibly-far-removed featuring all three other members without him, but given a bit of time more than the evolution is evident, and &U&I are far from Blakfish sans Sam.
Terror Back is a fantastic opener, and the EP flows brilliantly from start to finish. What the band have been able to do sonically with such limited numbers is impressive, and the experience of playing together for so long shines through on every track.
It’s a far cry from the deluded, image-obsessed, testicle-free dirge passing itself off as punk at the moment. It’s always great to hear some honest and down-to-earth output from a UK rock band – though especially in terms of lyrical content, it’d be more suprising if it wasn’t in this case.
Even if Blakfish weren’t your thing, there’s a whole different character to &U&I that invites you shed preconceptions – ‘Kill the Man That Shot That Man’ is something worth shutting your mouth and opening your ears for, and the band are most definitely worth keeping an eye on ahead of a full-length.