New shock troops of the post-lockdown political revolution are here, and they’re called Glitchers. This homemade, loud and intense punk EP delivers in-your-face fury while also being a lot of fun – but seriously folks, once you hear it and the echoes dissipate, prepare yourself for powerful ripples of vital relevance.
The UK drum/guitar duo of Sophie and Jake have inevitably been compared to Meg and Jack – check the White Stripe-y riff of Suck It, if nothing else – but they are in essence a very different animal, setting out to shake and shatter society into a necessary response.
Sophie’s kick drum is a particularly effective weapon while the guitars thrash away like hardcore Ramones, often culminating in a grungy crescendo with feedback to the fore.
Like the music, the lyrics are raw and powerful, but not without some subtlety – compare FFFIREWORK: “I’m a rag that’s doused in petrol/ And rammed into a fucking glass/ That’s got your name scratched into it,” with this from Keep Calm: “Time is running out …/ So smash the hourglass/ ’Cause there are more stars in space/ Than grains of sand on the fucking planet/ That we inhabit (inhibit?)/ While your heart’s still beating/ You better open up your mind/ Or die.”
There’s much doom, death and fucking disaster throughout and listening to the words reminds me of Taxi Driver’s Wizard (Peter Boyle) to De Niro’s Travis Bickle: “I envy you, your youth. Go on, get laid, get drunk. Do anything. You got no choice, anyway. I mean we’re all fucked. More or less, ya know.” Travis’s response? “I don’t know. That’s about the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
But it’s not just dumb negativity or simple nihilism. Fuck The Tories (a title that seems to say it all – but not literally, they add!) may whiff of Robespierre’s Terror and FFFIREWORK evokes the spirit of Guy Fawkes, but Keep Calm (about the potential fate of the planet), Tunnels (as in a light of freedom at the end of them) and Suck It argue for positive change en route to a brighter future (even if the latter’s anti-violence, pro-sex agenda already seems part of an ancient debate).
Opener Keep Calm and FFFIREWORK are probably best, but Suck It will also have its fans. Tunnels and Zombie Generation are defiantly rudimentary, before the closing broadside fired at poor Boris & Co (Glitchers in no-gigs lockdown have taken their music out into the streets, including to Downing Street).
There’s nothing exactly original about the confrontational approach, the railing at cunts, fascists and an “Orwellian state”, or the dire “wake up to ourselves or die” warnings. But the all-round message is certainly timely, and I predict more echoes and ripples to come after this particular protest bomb detonates.
Thought Crimes by Glitchers is out on March 12.