“I’m going to give you until the count of ten to get your ugly, yella, no-good keister off my property before I pump your guts full of lead. One… two… ten.”
I don’t know about the relevance of the ‘Home Alone’ quote but it proves to put a big smile on the face as it opens this eight track release from Darlington’s Misled Icons. Just as well, getting a hold of the digital download for this review has been bumpy ground indeed (note to bands, make promo downloads as simple as possible: Zip it!). Fortunately, this is a decent enough offering to shrug off these problems.
‘Thicker Than Shark Bait‘ is a good ol’ punk rawk record that just happens to dabble in skater punk, and even undertakes a foray, albeit not a very deep one, into hardcore. Across the eight songs there’s a sound that could easily be a blend of the 2004/05 Deck Cheese roster (Vanilla Pod, Fletcher, Phinius Gage, Route 215) along with the likes of Guns ‘n’ Wankers and maybe, just maybe, The Cut Ups. It’s low-fi, gritty rock with enough pop glean to make it a little more accessible if not revolutionary.
Unfortunately the E.P./mini-album does come over as a bit too lengthy. The opening four tracks have enough about them to keep you interested but the second half of the release tends to retread the same ground. Perhaps stripping this down to five songs, sifting out some of the filler, would have resulted in the record generating more impact. But then again it’s easy to see that the whole span of the release is about the band finding its sound.
All in all, not a bad little offering from a band that’s not likely to create a tremor on the originality scales but is worth a quick listen to anyway. And in case you were wondering, after that beginning this release is closed out the right way: “Keep the change you filthy animal.”
Alex