Andy Falkous loves to sing about the twisted human condition, and new taster EP Polymers Are Forever is no departure from this, packed with sneering observations like a tin of the most sarcastic sardines. Designed as a prelude to forthcoming album The Plot Against Common Sense, which according to Falco’s blog will contain songs with titles such as ‘Sorry Dad, I Was Late For The Riots’, the EP is a solid little piece of sing-along cynicism.
Stop-starting with the title track, strutting overdriven bass from new recruit Julia Ruzicka (of Million Dead fame, no less) is juxtaposed with synth tones from Falco’s keys and anti-chorus ‘bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, do it to me, do it to me’. In fact, nonsensical noise-making is actually a bit of a theme on this six song effort, with the start of ‘New Adventures’ being the most abrasively snotty use of a human tongue you’re ever likely to hear. The songs, probably more than any other Future Of The Left release, don’t just depend on fantastic lyrics but use vocal repetition and melody as pivotal points of interest. Musically, the end of ‘Polymers Are Forever’ would be a cheap nu-rave breakdown without it’s overlapped story-like refrain, ‘My Wife’ would lose half of it’s menace without staggered repetition through gritted teeth of ‘he’d phoned in sick for years, but no one thought to tell him, the plant had relocated and moved to Solihull’, and the spelled out understatement at the end of ‘Destroywhitchurch.com’ is harrowingly perfect.
There’s a great dynamic between loud and quiet, and a bucket full of built tension on songs like ‘My Wife’, but ‘Dry Hate’ shows that Falco still knows how to self-combust in two minutes. Talking over scuzzy guitars, he sounds like an introverted rambling drunk who has been handed a megaphone and decided to critique the current state of economies; ‘Yes these times are tight, will you share your helicopter landing pad with Sweden?’ The song sits perfectly alongside Mclusky classics like ‘Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues’ which Future Of The Left have reportedly been playing on their latest tour.
At just over twenty minutes, it’s half an album of belters that the band have decided to omit from their looming long-player in a care-free chucking of talent at the squawking public. I know my whistle is sufficiently wet.