Single Review and Video Premiere
Neovenator
The Air Raid Siren Repairman
Out now
As I said before... Olde English Peculiar they may be, or Steampunk Psych if you prefer, but fans of the Stranglers, Damned, Cardiacs, David Devant etc are well-advised to check out Neovenator, as there is much here to take to your heart. And this is their leanest, catchiest single yet, says Ged Babey
Steampunk will never go mainstream or ‘overground’ because it’s just too smart, clever and cryptic for the masses (who are asses for the most part). It is the domain of the well-read, well-dressed, English Eccentric and former nerdy brainy-kid oddballs that we all knew from school. The ones picked last for whatever sports team. but the ones chosen first when it came supplying home-made stink bombs or small explosive devices thanks to their chemistry sets.
The Air Raid Siren Repairman has all of Neovenators usual trademarks: that beautiful barracuda bass-sound and JJ-style playing. A catchy chorus and a neat lyric which subtly bemoans the threat of war.
Ironically, fellow travellers of a gentlemanly punk rock disposition The Fallen Leaves have played shows with Neovenator – and I once described Leaves/Subway Sect guitarist Rob Simmons as ‘The John Le Mesurier of Punk Rock’ because of gentility and distracted air. He had a badge made with the description on. With this song, somehow Neovenator have written a ‘protest song’ using the ghosts of Dads Army as an inadvertant inspiration. This is a thoroughly good thing in my book and the song far more listenable than the recent Massive Attack/ Tom Waits dirge -worthy though it is..
A bit of Tone Loc (the drums) Stranglers (bass) and XTC (keys) but thoroughly Neovenator at their most kooky and catchy.
‘Now war is back in fashion / Don’t forget to thank him’ being a typically strange couplet. A couple of layers of irony via the Futurist Manifesto, (courtesy of the Antz Animals & Men and Warden Hodges. I was just waiting for a sample of ‘Put that light out Napoleon’.
The B-side is called While The Cats Away and bafflingly mentions foxes and Edison rather than playful mice.
Neovenator should be the house-band on the Tardis (so that they could play on the Titanic, Warmington On Sea 1943, the Great Exhibition and so on) – and this is arguably their finest 3 minutes 49 seconds – which you can go back to time and time again.
Buy from here
All words Ged Babey
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