One thing often missing from UK indie bands, with their far-off gazes and sweeping string-backed epics is a sense of humour.
When did you last see Thom Yorke cracking a joke between numbers or Liam Gallagher pulling out a rubber chicken midway
through a song? Well, bizarre drug-addled experiences aside, the answer is not very often. Southampton's Slow Smile however
have no such pretentions. The decision to cover Take That's mighty teen knicker-wetting opus is amusing enough, but turning
it into an electro-goth metallic machine that bears hardly any resemblance to the original tune is getting close to Vic and Bob level of
genius.
A one-man band, Slow Smile are Gary Burt, a recording machine and his fevered imagination. Not a bad little line-up at all on the evidence of this offering. The highlight is of course "Back For Good". Starting off like The Cure's "A Forest", Burt's Ian Curtis style vocals then begin to intone the Gary Barlow-penned lyrics with monotonous intensity. As a drum machine beats out the rhythm relentlessly and the bass riff drags you along screaming, the chorus rushes up on you and belts you in the face with a wet haddock. Hilarious, and bravely original. Barlow himself has heard the tribute and was, to quote the press release "staggered". Who am I to argue? The first b-side is "Wake Up", an odd Syd Barrett-ish ramble through the time of day between the alarm going off and actually getting up (which can be anything up to 3 hours in my case). Diverting, it is hardly vital - although the sampled use of an alarm clock's bleeping annoyance is inspired. The last track on this truly unique offering is "Meteor Shower", a fuzzed-up garage blast that is cooler-than-cool entirely because of its Patrick Moore namecheck. Reminding me of early Stranglers songs, it is a grand finale to an EP that Mr Burt can be proud of. Someone sign this man now - the charts would be a brighter place with this sort of stuff in them. Find out more about Slow Smile at their website - designed by the multi-talented Burt himself. |
