There’s a squid in the town centre? Somewhat surreal but apt to describe the band Squid and their latest ep Town Centre as the odd and left-field is what they supply.
Four tracks. Opener Savage is a woozy update on Talk Talk. Downbeat brass overpowers stop/start percussion.
Match Bet is college rock with Pavement guitars distorting and fighting with screamo singing. Come On Fix Me Up is a mantra repeated here. The inspiration of the song was a customer with mental health issues who visited the shop where drummer Ollie worked.
The Cleaner is the outstanding track here. Jagged guitar lines interspersed with sparse percussion and jittery, geek indie. Things change down a gear into a more meditative vibe, then go back up again. The vocalist manages to channel both Mark E. Smith (The Fall) and James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem). If you picked apart all the shimmer and surface of 1980s pop and retooled it with left-field Indie influences such as The Fall and Talking Heads you get an approximation of what Squid and The Cleaner are. A contemporary artist who dabbles in similar waters is Pixx.
Closer Rodeo is minimalism with a lazy backbeat where vocals drift in and occasionally the band crash in to make themselves heard.
When we reviewed their gig with Red Deer People last year in Brighton we said Squid was the newly crowned Kings of Avant-Garde Indie in Brighton. Fast forward one year they are now the Kings of Avant-Garde in the UK. All hail!
The EP Town Centre by Squid is available via Spotify
Facebook: Squid
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