Aside from having one of the best names around, Limerick's giveamanakick (no capitals, please) announced themselves with one of the fiercest debuts to grub around in the indie margins in recent times with 2003's delightfully scabrous "Is It OK To Be Loud, Jesus?".
Indeed, anyone who got caught in the brain-flaying melee of that record without prior knowledge would struggle to believe that such mighty thunder was being kicked up by merely two individuals: namely guitarist/ vocalist Stephen Ryan and drummer/ vocalist Keith Lawler. Christ, weren't two-piece bands supposed to follow the White Stripes blues-y, minimalist blueprint, not make the sound of a thousand cement mixers churning at once?
Well, clearly no-one bothered to tell Messrs.Ryan and Lawler before or after the event, because with long-awaited follow-up (I assume the gap stretched to two years plus because of Ryan's fascinatingly skewhiff Windings project) "We Are The Way Forward", their uncompromising sonic attack has been intensified rather than neutered in any way.
Indeed, the opening salvo of tracks makes it clear that GAMAK have been storing up reserves of pent up aggression just for us. If anything, the wired and adrenalised opener "Bobby Dazzler"s furious, perpetual motion riffing even eclipses debut album highlight "Ger Canning" and finds Stephen in curiously liturgical mood, howling fascinating stuff like "Why save yourself from yourself? It's nothing to do with what's left of the soul!" Well, absolutely. If this isn't frenetic enough for you, then the ensuing "Grabbity - all supercharged beats and massive funky riffs and kind've like a hellish amalgam of the Gang Of Four and Black Flag - boots you relentlessly in the balls and the club-footed Glam riffs and amped-up desperation of "Let God Touch Your Children" (sample lyric: "I'm a fast car driving at night with no lights on!") makes a mockery of the idea of GAMAK needing something as wimpy and inessential as a (cough) bassist.
This being giveamanakick, there's naturally still reserves of tongue-in-cheek humour going down, especially in the musical sense. "Hatch 77", for example, suggests that the obvious foil for broiling guitars and steamhammer drumming must be handclaps (but of course!), while "Sick From Motion"s initial staccato-style riff sounds like a post-rock "My Sharona" before the inevitable Math-Rock tempo changes kick in, and Ryan's malevolent whisper of a vocal on "Aquaplaning" finds him vowing hilarious stuff like "I wanna be more marketable, I wanna save the world, just like...Bono." Besides, name me any other hardcore noiseniks likely to name one of their tunes "Non-Emo Outsiders"? That's enough to get a star from this reviewer all on it's lonesome.
|
Nonetheless, lyrically it's still fear, disappointment and a general disenchantment with human nature that dominate and resonate in many of GAMAK'S best songs. "Spit"s manic bitten-off punk, for example, finds Ryan wapping himself up in the revulsion of the lines "the crowds they spit, the crowds they pity you, people don't look people in the eye anymore"; the super-cynical, but brilliantly observed "Red Faced Killers" ("last night I made a killing, it was cruel but functional/ and I like the way it happened under your nose, so I'm going to the funeral, 'cos it makes me feel alive, ha ha ha!") matches the sneery hypocrisy of the lyric with a boastful testosterone rush of a musical backdrop and may be one of the very best things Ryan and Lawler have done to date.
Typically, they go out like a lion as well, with the snarling, soul-scouring set-piece that is "Suffer The Gowls". For non-Irish readers, this title could refer to goblins, fools or an important part of the female anatomy, and though the lyric refers to "Good old Catholic guilt", I still think it would be unwise to stick my neck out here. Suffice it to say, though, that it's the sound of two young lads getting seriously hot under the collar and losing themselves in the intensity of the moment for the good of us all.
"We Are The Way Forward", then, is a second sizzling instalment from one of Ireland's still-stupidly undervalued bands. Stephen Ryan may sing slightly ruefully of "standing on the toes of giants, they've got steel toe-caps, but I'm still trying" on "Sick From Motion", but that doesn't mean giveamanakick's furious rock'n'roll ever fails to connect here. It boots punk rock botty with the best of 'em, and by Christ it hurts real good!
|
