aaamusic | On 17, Jul 2011

There’s a very good way of testing the credentials of any rock fan, ask them whether every song should begin with a swaggering drum beat and a burst of guitar noise that melts into a shit kicking guitar riff. If the answer is yes then you can safely assume that this imaginary person is the same kind of unreconstructed rocker that probably makes up Butterfly Fan The Inferno, a Birmingham quartet looking to usurp Queens of the Stone Age’s mantle as the go to band for retro thrills made Febreeze blasted fresh. Of course, like every band since that’s tried that shtick save perhaps Arctic Monkeys it’s completely laughable to compare the two but in this case it’s even more laughable than usual. What’s worse is that both songs on this double A-side single have quite a lot of promise, not Homme-toppling promise, but promise nonetheless, as I mentioned before, i Coma begins with a pretty killer approximation of the tried and tested “drums – guitar noise – riff” intro and Sunset Scavengers comes equipped with a pretty badass riff but it’s when one starts to listen that the whole charade is lifted.

 

These songs are just lifeless, Sunset Scavengers’ post chorus breakdown with singer John Kelly harmonizing what probably sounded like a voodoo blues chant during recording should build up tension but instead kills what could have been a pretty good track stone dead, and that’s before the repeated mantra “I’m unpredictable” violates the corpse by making every listener curl their toes so far under their feet with sheer embarrassment they’ll never quite walk the same way again. i Coma doesn’t even have a memorably bad moment going for it, never mind anything worth listening again for. The list goes on, featuring lackluster vocals to production that makes the whole listening experience feel sterilized, as if the listener is watching the band perform through glass window, and the band are made up of mannequins with opposable thumbs, but I shall merely close with this, this is what music should sound like according to middle aged men who never quite got over Ozzy leaving Sabbath, still nursing pints in unwashed leather jackets and a Rainbow 1976 tour T shirt that’s straining over a ballooning beer gut. And obviously, that’s a terrible, terrible thing.

 

Author: Will Howard