THE CUBICAL'S debut album appears to have come from nowhere, though further research unearths the fact they've actually done plenty of dues playing on their native Merseyside, playing gigs with local Indie royalty such as The Coral, The Zutons and The Stands.
Such high profile attention has done them no harm whatsoever. 'Come Sing These Crippled Tunes' was predominantly laid down in LA'S famous Sunset Sound Studios ( The Doors, Stones, Beach Boys) with David Sardy (Oasis, Primal Scream, Johnny Cash) at the controls and it's a wild, untethered beast which – in the way only Liverpool bands can – swaggers around slurping a mind-melting firewater hybrid blended from the waters of both Mersey and Mississippi
Before we get to the deserved accolades, though, your reviewer feels the need to temper them slightly. Firstly, if we're getting down to brass tacks, the clutch of tracks recorded in Liverpool without Sardy's guiding hand don't quite have the same presence or power. Not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with the junkyard blues and frying pan snare drum sounds of arrogant new single 'Like Me (I'm a Peacock)' or the ghostly dawdle of 'Everything You Touch', but they sound a little tinny and clean compared to the filthy overload they harnessed during the Hollywood sessions. More pertinently, The Cubical's sound ain't a blue million miles from the star sailing psych-blues that formerly oozed so imperiously from their Scouse forebears The Stairs either. And Edgar Jones' boys went unfairly crowned for that pioneering work.
But even with all that taken into account, The Cubical remain a tantalising proposition. Opening with a wonderfully ominous “whoa-oh-oh!” chant, startling first track 'Great White Lie' is a splendid, blues'n'psych-inspired rush coming on like an inspired cross breed of Beefheart circa 'Safe as Milk' and The Chocolate Watch Band at their deadliest and still finding room for that all important raw blister of dissonance. Of course, it also helps that singer Dan Wilson howls like he's drowning in gravel and bourbon, but he really is a rabidly wonderful presence throughout, making like a brooding junior Mark Lanegan on the atmospheric ballad 'All Is Well' and turning in a sublime and tortured performance on 'Poison Pen'. During this latter, he doesn't so much sound like he's fighting his demons as taking them for an all-night session at the Speakeasy, but no-one's complaining 'bout that.
|
Musically, The Cubical are a gift for a producer as keen on vintage '50s Telecasters, battered valve amps and jazz snares as David Sardy is, but there's no doubting the power of the dense and authentic swamp of sound he allows the band to wallow in here. Tracks like 'Woman, I Need Your Love So Bad' and 'Baby Don't Treat Me Bad' sound like they could eat the 22-20s for breakfast, while the Farfisa-injected 'Edward The Confessor' is a tremendous freakbeat experience by anyone's standards. Perhaps best of all is the desolate closing track 'Would Be Lovers': a wracked, Biblical epic that would surely put a chill in Nick Cave's soul and a departure that bodes well for future development.
Already the home of amazing blues, roots and folk re-shapers like the Nashville Liverpool Underground Medicine Show and The Loose Moose String Band, Merseyside is never slow to put its' own personalised spin on the dirtiest American sounds. In this context, The Cubical are coming at it from a more recognisable, but no less spectacular angle. 'Come Sing These Crippled Tunes' with them and, oh Lordy, you'll soon be a believer.
(http://www.myspace.com/thecubicalthecubical)
|
