The London Particular is the latest album from Dealing With Damage the post-fragglecore pea souper group, who became one of the last bands to recorded with Pat Collier at his legendary Perry Vale Studios, just before he left for the great mixing desk in the sky, Jess Cochran also helped out at Perry Vale and the rest of the album was recorded at One Cat Studio's with Jon Clayton. Dealing With Damage are Ed Wenn, James Sherry, Andy Myers, Steve Cox and Owen Cox.
The album opens with Deep State Of Relaxation the tune that acts as a mellow intro to the band's wellbeing practise, it should be accompanied by transcendental meditation or Alexander technique so you acquire the correct headspace for the rest of the album.
The Inconvenience Of Democracy asks all the questions we need to hear about just how screwed the system we live under currently is, they ask why the world can't unite to the sound of urgent guitars and buzzing keyboards, they all sing lets recognize the really big liars, well I hope we all do, while uniting and buying lots of copies of this album.
Nickey Nickey fizzes and rollicks out of the speakers, while they plead for the return of Nickey Nickey like they are still waiting for Nickey Wire to come back to play for them again, I like the dentist drill guitars/keyboards that come back in after the breakdown.
Wrong Sometimes has some frantic keyboards and the questions of just how wrong things have gone recently, everywhere they look things have gone Wrong Sometimes for no good reason, some nicely odd, speedy 70's soundtrack synth and guitar battle it out and shouted vocals get the point across.
But Fear This Art it might make you think differently to the mainstream and not fall into the normal traps, this sort of goes indie dub with weird shakers and spoken word parts riffing on life and how to live it.
Be Careful opens like they want to be the indie rock Cluster, until the rampaging guitars follow the introductory narration, lyrics looks at gentrification and other modern traumas. Hymn For A Burned goddess has a neo-gamelan drum and bells feel for the outro to the A-side.
The B-side opens with a fusillade of guitar into to Pre Dawn Grey Sky Blues, you are up early for another day at the grind of life, you feel like your waiting for something to happen, staring at the phone, is there a reason for what happened, they explore quiet loud dynamics of another day waiting for an answer.
Hate can set you free as long as you hate the right things, and we all have a long list started in lockdown, now about 300 names plus long, they understand that if you don't hate the right things you'll end up being an embittered old punk instead of a joyful one still enjoying life.
Now I Know My DWD's is a cheeky look at the bands history and lives in the London scenes over the years, being so hardcore you won't listen to anything else, not realizing your favourite songs are covers and other crimes of youth, with new wave fraggle guitars unafraid to be seen talking to EMO kids, while claiming they were never grebo's and wishing they could be K-Pop.
Alienation flicks the dial and tries to tune into the feelings you have of being an Alien in your own hometown, things have changed, mutated and managed decline seems to have overtaken them, this sounded huge live and even on record is pretty massive, a real tune for the mid-2020's malaise.
The Off Switch is needed, turn off the news, stop reading all the hate on your phone, let the harmonies get in your head, go and do something less boring instead, like play in another band and play shows, anything but consuming more digital detritus.
Toolbox uses weird synths and spoken word to explore the inner workings of personality, before they get a lot throatier and shouty about a broken system. The album closes with One Bump At A Time that has rotor blade noises before the acoustic guitar comes in and the suggestion that the only way to stay sane is to take life One Bump At A Time, rather than being about doing bumps of sherbet dib dabs, so sit back relax and allow Dealing With Damage to impress on you the bands own modern philosophy.
Find Out More at https://serialbowlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-london-particular https://www.facebook.com/dealingwithdamage/ www.dealingwithdamage.com
