9

Sick And Twisted But You'll Love It Regardless

Thanks to Tipper Gore and her friends at the PMRC getting their knickers in a twist about the corruptive influences of music, since the 1980s albums have boasted a parental advisory warning on the front cover, a hint to parents to keep their impressionable little darlings away from such devilish acts whilst acting as a shining beacon for kids to quickly nick it off the shelf. A couple of decades on and somehow I don’t think even Tipper could have seen these guys coming, and certainly there’s no way anyone could have devised a warning against them.

Screeching their way out of Scotland, the bizarrely and yet fittingly named Take A Worm For A Walk Week want to insult, they want to cause a wake of chaos in their path and they want to have you begging for mercy within two seconds and no tiny warning label is going to stand in their way. At just over 16 minutes, their second album, ‘The Monroe Transfer’ is definitely vying for the leanest album in history title with all 13 tracks whizzing by in a hail of screeching venom and sick twisted snarls that are out to cause trouble and nothing else. TAWFAWW aren’t strong believers in wasting time, diving so far into opening track ‘Portuguese Breakfast’ that you’d be forgiven for thinking they're halfway through the track already. Frantic bursts of noise ensue from here on in as squealing vocals seem to have a punch up with every instrument the band posses whilst spinning around in a giant washing machine. It’s the type of noise that should offend, should disgust but intrigues more than anything.

On top of this there’s the lad’s cheeky humour out to provide some laughs and distastefulness from the schoolboy giggles of ‘Lips, Eyes And Arseholes’ to ‘Helmet Spew’, a track that shrieks by with a blast of yelps akin to a Yorkshire terrier savaging the postman as he sprints up the path, kicking it in the teeth as he goes. But strangely by the time ‘Air Tight’ rears its snarling head and emits a crash of drums that threaten to shake every wall within a ten mile radius, TAWFAWW have worked their magic, inflicting a touch of cohesion amongst the anger ravaged terrorization and growls, leaving you more confused for your sanity then you were for theirs at the start.

A schizophrenic rampage that threatens to take you as a hostage or bludgeon you to death, there’s seems to be no winning preference, ‘The Monroe Transfer’ wants to scare you, it wants to have you running for your life and whilst at first you may be inclined to do just that, there’s an unnerving tiny portion of your brain that is actually getting a sick kick at TAWFAWW’s exploits. The music equivalent of a car crash, you’ll be desperate to turn away but somehow you just know you’ll listen anyway.