aaamusic | On 22, Jan 2012

Healer/Monster is the new EP release by the eponymous London band. When opener Rapture hits we are first confronted by a raw voice fronting a breed of indie that is a little Los Campesinos, and very Trail of Dead. This song is a bitter, longing sneer. Follower Scenery embraces distortion by clumsily juxtaposing an intermitting keyboard to a textbook strummed ballad; the result is a forced electricity which fails to ignite. Uberman quickly comes to save the day, re-sporting Healer/Monster’s much more convincing swagger: a downfall of guitars meets a sneaky UFO-like synth reverberating throughout. This boast of intent continues with Who’s Sorry, only under much less compelling premises. A pastiche of California Love-reminiscing beats, heavy-for-heavy’s-sake drums and guitars, this song could use some freshness. And, funnily enough, freshness abounds in Gone, the EP closer, which gives the record the true kiss of life. This Camera-Obscura-meets-Place-to-Bury-Strangers finale is a delightfully clumsy serenade – “When I’m with you I feel like I could do Kung-Fu, and Ju-Jitsu” is not quite the rhyming declaration you’d expect.

What this record clearly shows about Healer/Monster is their eclectic nature, and the undaunted playfulness with which they cut genres that live continents apart and paste them together with skill. And when this risky alchemy works, we find that what we have on our hands is a band with quite some spark, and quite a few things to get off their chests.

 

Chiara Amoretti