Dustan Bruce returns along with former Chumbawamba drummer, bandmate Harry Hamer and ex-Regular Fries guitarist Stephen Griffin for their latest incarnation, Interrobang! Opener ‘Here Now’ has a cacophony of styles from a Kaiser Chief riff to a Streets spoken word verse before a chorus of devastating simplicity binds it all together like salty pasta water. ‘The Inclement Weather’ is laced with Bruce’s inciteful words of modern life poetry before a speedy chorus leads us into the clipped pre-arthritic pain of ‘Asking For A Friend’. ‘Are You Ready People’ is as close to versification perfection as I’ve heard in a long long time, chopping Skids/Ruts guitars and lyrical beauties such as “a laxative for the limousine liberals”.The song has an eye-opening, almost educational quality and when Bruce pontificates you listen.
The factory sewing machine flow on ‘Mad As Hell’ is followed by the middle-aged male stoicism anthem ‘Curmudgeon’. A Pet Shop feel drifts over ‘Taciturn’ before it’s ‘Wait For The Blackout’ chorus rises and opens terraced house curtains. The difficult dead Dad conversational ‘Do You Remember’ is shouted down by the Fall-ish ‘Love It All’ before ‘Based On A True Story’ motors with one armed scissor precision. His hometown is (dis)honoured on ‘Billingham’, while ‘Breathe’ confronts the ageing Anarcho-Punk mind, doubts and fears. The album is closed by the sell-by date anger of ‘Am I Invisible Yet’. An intelligent, arrow sharp observational album filled with life-affirming northern witticisms, charisma and life’s brutal truth.
INTERROBANG?
(SELF TITLED DEBUT)
All The Mad Men Records)
9/10