In love with the fuzz, Soup Moat are a frighteningly lo-fi cross between Neurosis and Mudhoney, delving deep into the frantic territory of psychosis via grungy, heavily distorter guitars, atypical timings and demonic vocals. Their songs are short. They may feature one of the only appearances of the descant recorder on a rock record and listening for lengthy periods of time may need to insanity and/or blindness.
This limited 7” EP opens with ‘comfy one’ a song that kicks off like a psychedelic jam only to segue into the sort of sludge-blasted noise that made early neurosis so utterly menacing. It’s not a complete story however and the band slip from frightening torrents of noise into driving art rock via massed vocals, the occasional falsetto and drums that seem designed to summon the doorway to hell itself. In contrast ‘nevernotfuckedup’ is a waltz through a primary school music room as multiple recorders pile up over a looped vocal and the song eventually explodes into life only having ravaged your brain first with the sort of painful insanity that normally only has to be endured by the parents of young, musically minded children. Clearly this is music for an extreme few, and it takes a certain presence of mind not to tear the vinyl from the player as the recorders wreak their unholy magic and it’s impossible not to admire such single-mindedly self-destructive impulses in today’s somewhat anodyne musical landscape. Oddly ‘riddle giggle gang’ is more or less straight-up punk in the vein of Seaweed (remember them?) although it has a mid-song breakdown that seems beamed in from a different rehearsal session (and even a different band) altogether… just to keep you on your toes.
With a title suggesting a pop-infused trawl, ‘uptown girl’ is crackly punk that sounds like your bedroom’s been invaded by a high-school garage band obsessed with Iggy Pop and torn clothing. It is (whisper it) a conventional song although the memory of it soon evaporates in the face of the relentless dirge that is ‘band practice’, a splenetic, squally mess of a track that should be mandated on all radio station playlists the world over if only to shake the far too complacent younger generation out of their obsession with mediocrity. The mini-ep ends with ‘envelope’ that recalls early sonic youth with its gnarled chords and skittering beat giving way to an almost relaxed piece of music.
Soup Moat are an awesomely unhinged band who clearly have no care for the accepted niceties of making music. With minimal concession to tunes (and/or tuning) the band experiment with a variety of genres, loosely tethering themselves to punk but owing more to the avant-garde antics of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and the like. It’s an EP that will be loved by few, but those few will treasure it for its wonderful idiosyncrasies as the music industry continues to airbrush all the human elements of record making out of their artists. Having grown up in the neo-punk/art-rock addled nineties, Soup Moat are a band that carry on that fine tradition of making music because they have to not because they want to get famous or because they want to play to stadiums filled with screaming teenagers. This is a dirty, grubby, punky mess and it’s all the better for it. Check out the vinyl – it looks awesome and buy this release. It’ll make your brain hurt, but it’ll also give you the adrenalin kick that so few records offer now.
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