Two of the December EP's three tracks have arrived in Yorkshire to see what sort of a polish THE VOID might end up with from the critical scouring pad of doom.
The publicity material includes the numbingly "too much information" snippet that the missing song "You're So Sweet" was written on Pete Doherty's guitar. And that, of course, raises the question of whether the poor lad really does have just the one.
Well, whatever, the title track "Love like a Machine Gun" seems to have been written on the back of THE CURE'S wonderful "The Love Cats". Minus the piano, minus the upright bass and minus the zoological noises, the song is strikingly similar in bass line, chord sequence, tempo and general feel. So it’s not surprisingly a damn fine pop song, and could have made the pop charts had it been on a known label with some judicious plugging. RIght there alongside Franz Ferdinand.
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Otherwise I'm not so sure. As an addition to the national heritage or as a marker for future critical attention, this EP's standing in the gulf between pop success and clever retro might be a problem. I can't help worrying about the cost of the derivative style and the crude Libertines positioning by the PR people.
As a local band demo I'd rate the offering very highly. It's energetic, spiky and well focussed. Both songs on the CD have the insistent stabbing guitar noise of the moment. Nathan Clarke's anguished but drawling vocal line sounds fresh and go-getting. But in the end I feel like a tired A&R weasel dealing with potential product. I mumble inwardly, "Send us anything else you do and stay in touch, yeh?" and I don't feel sincere.
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