The great escape era Bluresque strings that start ‘Screen Villains’ give way to a vaguely offkey punky vocal. It stokes the embers of The Throwing Muses melodies whilst never quite getting burnt.
There is a certain attractive awkwardness and haphazard rhythmic cadence that lends a distracting charm. An off kilter that’s charmingly out of step with chartsville.
Do I hear a breath of fresh air? Can you hear fresh air?
It’s not all plain sailing though, the processed drumbeats which sound machine produced, but probably aren’t, threaten to overflood and render the dark shadow of karaoke to proceedings.
It does just about pull it back though, and becomes The Tings Tings it’s ok to like.
