After the rip-roaring ‘God Is Dead So I Listen To Radiohead’ single a few months ago, this long player expands the SP palette with some strident and savvy songs which sound like Carter USM covering The Fall (and that is a complement). The guitar sounds are retro but also quite “now”, a bit like that Replicants LP last year, timeless garage rock I guess you’d call it. And the lyrical themes, the barky frontman backed by the shouty but rather sassy sounding female, very Brix era… are attacked with an uncompromising vigour.
Starting off with ‘Tickbox Exercise’, a real toe-tapper with a fabtastic guitar riff, evoking dead end call centre jobs and corporate doom, this should be played loud. ‘I Like Sums’ is verging on idiot savant territory and attempts to make maths cool, which it almost does. ‘Your Heroes at Home’ is hilarious and groovy, with a few Half Man Half Biscuit tendencies (“Brandon Flowers has forgotten that it’s bin day”) – “and the front hedge needs trimming”.
The rest of the nine tracks include the aforementioned ‘God is Dead’, the sneering ‘Social Networking Site’ and the eponymous ‘Scumbag Philospher’. ‘Sunshine Corporation’ pours scorn on self-improvement manuals while ‘On the Shortwave’ really does appear to be an commentary on changing music formats of our time. (“Still buy records, can’t let vinyl down, watch them spinning round”) – and an update of ‘I’m Into CB’ as well.
A cage-rattling debut, makes you glad to be alive.
