An Emergency
If there's one thing we Brits excel at musically, it's copying other people. Other nations manage to plagiarise/homage without sounding like exact facsimiles of their inspirations, but if a band's American (or maybe Swedish or Finnish, at a push) and featured prominently in a recent issue of 'Kerrang!', then we'll slavishly rip 'em off to produce a personality-less, idea-free act of staggering redundancy.
Which brings me to 'We Are The Octagonists'. This 20 minute long 'mini-album' (that's an EP, in the old money) is the latest release by young Exeter band An Emergency, a group who are clearly familiar with the works of At The Drive In and the swarm of 'post-punk' (retch!) rock bands which gathered in their wake. You know the score; relatively clean guitars scratch their way through nine tracks of vaguely funky, lo-fi, garagey tunes coupled with 'irreverent' song titles and lyrics which achieve the oxymoron of superficial depth. Arrangements and production are as minimalist as you would expect, to the point where the band don't even have a bass player in their ranks. It's been proved time and time again that no-one does a pseudo-American accent like a young man born and raised in the south of England, and the singing on 'We Are The Octagonists' does not disappoint in this regard. The groups penchant for 'quirky' vocals - particularly evident on 'We Speak Modal' and 'Paper Tiger' quickly wears thin and becomes as irritating as someone continually trying to convince you how 'mad' and 'crazy' they are.
Of course, it's early days yet for An Emergency and there's nothing wrong with having a favourite band to inspire you. You could congratulate them on their attention to detail, they really do have this sound down pat. I also quite like the octopus on the front cover. But whatever happened to the days when Britain produced quality, original rock music that was the inspiration to and envy of the rest of the world?
The fellows in An Emergency are obviously good eggs and are apparently very active in Exeter's rock scene, putting on shows, organising artwork and releases for other bands, so I hate to be so negative. If you're a big fan of this particular sub-genre then there's probably enough here to interest you and make this a worthwhile purchase. For myself, I'm sorry, but this just isn't something I'm ever going to listen to again in my entire life. Not bad, just bland.
And by the way, if I see another band described as 'angular [and] arty' in their press release then I am going to vomit blood.