The Moonlandingz: No Rocket Required
Vinyl | CD | DL
Out there 25 April from Sister Ray
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
Misplaced in house for seven years, The Moonlandingz return to earth with a brand new set of dystopian dance choices. Steve Morgan straps in for re-entry…
A band singing a few world gone to shit. The very last thing you want in a world going to shit, or so that you’d suppose. However that is Sheffield. They do issues in another way there – not least their pop music. Seven years on from debut Interplanetary Class Classics, on which the fictional brainchild band of Eccentronic Analysis Council duo Dean Honer and Adrian Flanagan was made flesh with the assistance of Fats White Household moonlighters Lias Saoudi (AKA Johnny Rocket) and Saul Adamczewksi, The Moonlandingz return from the stratosphere. Adamczewski has jumped ship, however No Rocket Required finds the remaining crew in superb fettle, with lots to say and as with their first providing, a bunch of prepared accomplices from both finish of pop’s space-time continuum – Iggy Pop, Nadine Shah, Jessica Winter – completely happy to assist them say it.
From the brisk, squelchy stomp of opener Some Folks’s Music, the place Ewen Bremner’s spoken easy-going vibe morphs right into a Trainspotting ‘Select Life’ type frothing rant, its insidious charms unfurl throughout 10 tracks spanning an entertaining 39 minutes. Almost 10 of those are accounted for by bonkers nearer Krack Drought Suite (Elements 1-3) the place Rocket’s personal psychedelic reel unwinds towards a nightmarish, jackhammer techno backbeat. With autotune. Solely two of the remaining eight songs go the four-minute mark – brevity is the soul of wit for these merry pranksters. It’s a refreshingly playful, funky fricassee. Lead-off single The Signal of a Man is a breezily kitsch Studio 54 Hello-NRG pastiche delivered in a splendidly arch, louche method. Saoudi revels in a persona pitched someplace between Divine and Patrick Cowley – “I stroll on water, I can stroll in sturdy winds, I can cook dinner a very good coq au vin, in the event you take out the bins”.
It’s the golden age of disco, Jim, however not as we all know it. It’s seen by way of the smeared, greasy cracked lens of an evening out; suppose Sheffield’s fabled Restrict membership circa 1980: terrain the place any try at fancy footwork proved an enormous step for mankind because of the legendarily sticky carpet. The standout observe is the sleazily seductive Roustabout, wherein Shah’s spoken Tyneside tones wrap spherical scuzzy imagery – ‘daddy’s underwear, mummy’s urge for food’ – is a tricky couplet to shake. Shah is a superb foil for Saoudi’s half-mumbled baritone, the observe climaxing in an operatic, nightmarishly woozy fairground haze that brings John Barry, or a extra poppy Portishead to thoughts. There’s no hurt in that.
Elsewhere, there’s lots to love from Jessica Winter’s visitor spot on the pure saccharine pop of Stink Foot, whereas Iggy Pop, 78 years younger this month, bares his soul – and contractually, presumably, his chest – on It’s The place I’m From. Image a misty-eyed Lee Marvin raking over the ashes of his previous and also you’re not far off. This voice has been lived in. “Received’t somebody put their arms round me? I can not take the ache of those that’ve gone, I’d wish to put your world behind me, however all over the place I look is the place I’m from”. It’s a far take away from earlier observe The Bugs Have Been Shat On, which muses on the common themes of the oppressed, Saoudi conjuring up the righteous spit and snark of classic Howard Devoto, or a coked-up Pulp, as wild sax hovers over shredded guitars and a fidgety, driving beat.
The world has modified past recognition of their absence, however this can be a band boldly going through the longer term whereas doffing a cap to the previous. It bottles the style of Sheffield like Henderson’s Relish. The ghosts of Cabaret Voltaire and the synth drone of early Human League lurk in these corners: the afore-mentioned Krack Drought Suite is an actual cackle within the darkness. Right here Saoudi in his Rocket persona lurches throughout an apocalyptic South Yorkshire panorama, like a mad cross between Richard Burton’s narrator in Conflict of the Worlds, solely crossed with Laibach and Mark E Smith. “For some cause or different everybody gave the impression to be engaged in racial bloodsports – it’s a ginger canine, it’s a fox” he muses, as he namechecks West Avenue (house of the Restrict) and Orgreave (in the event you don’t know what occurred there in the summertime of 1984, verify your historical past books).
If dystopic electronica’s your bag, you’ll discover it catchier than distemper in a pack of feral canines. And gloriously un-house skilled. “Received my entire world spinning like a hog on a spit,” Saoudi intones over a skittering artificial snare on the superb Give Me Extra – paying homage to Prince, solely with a STD.
“We hope to be the most-hated fictional band by Christian rednecks within the US,” mentioned Adrian Flanagan again through the band’s preliminary promotional rounds. It’s onerous to think about these house cadets could be allowed wherever close to America as of late – the album cowl itself would care for that – however catch them in the event you can – now we have lift-off.
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You could find extra about The Moonlandingz right here https://store.themoonlandingz.com/index
All phrases by Steve Morgan @stevemorgan68.bsky.social. His profile is right here.
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