Jerky, vigorous, eclectic yes, but not very good at the end of the day, which is a shame as the cheeky lyrical peculiarities and rambling greenery of tracks like ‘You Can Hear The World From Menwith Hill’ suggests there’s more to O Fracas than the now staple British diet of bouncy beats, jerky guitars and vacant expressions of ‘just another post-punk’ band in the mould of Franz Ferdinand. Personally I got rather tired of all this by the time I’d finished jumping up and down like a prat to Hot Hot Heat’s ‘Bandages’. Not because I was sweating profusely, you understand. Not because I was ‘waved’ out – but because it opened the floodgates to no end of jerky, ironic bands who thought they were the natural heirs to XTC, Gang of Four and the best part of 1979. You know who I’m talking about: The Rapture, IMA Robot, Radio 4 Pretty Girls Make Graves, Liars, Bloc Party – no one is without blame, we all contributed to the sprawling, ironic ‘jerk-scape’ that has typified the last few years. Let’s be honest, up until 2003 we were slagging off the likes of Emerson Lake and Palmer and Weather Report to have the temerity to indulge in hugely tangential time signatures, poncey jazzy jams and stretching the dynamics of the popular song to the point of snapping – which is principally why songs like ‘Brouahha’ and ‘Follw Sue’ don’t work. The glorious exceptions, of course, are the itchy, slinky xylophones of the album’s charming, ‘And A Scratch Runs Down A Wall’ and the Bonzo Dog tomfoolery of experimental toy boxes like ‘Sixteen Beats’.
It’s an interesting beast certainly, but the three years the album has taken to make and the chronic changes of personnel has taken its toll.
In the words of Stevie Smith: its not New-Waving but drowning. Even if it does make the occasional splash.
‘FITS AND STARTS’ – RELEASED 19.05.08