I Love ILL – they’re like a gang from The Warriors dressed up in Mark E Smith jumpers as designed by Devo.
Squelchy, rabid, seasick post punk that’s more punk that post. Trashy, shlocky and bad to know, they career all over your sensibilities and live in a chaotic world of stuttering bass, fairground horror keyboards and Slits back alley shouting.
Look, they have a song called ‘Space Dick’ which is the sound of a Space Invader on holiday and a hilariously loud cowbell.
Meanwhile, ‘Stuck On A Loop’ sounds like if, that band again, Devo, were spewing over B52s B-sides.
‘ILL Song’ sounds like scurvy.
Also meanwhile, ‘Bears’ is poking around in the more contemplative end of the genre, sounding like Teardrop Explodes when Copey was tripping his nut off and thinking about his solo career. Look, this has a chorus of “I’ll feed you to my bear” (I assume they’re not singing “I’ll feed you to my Bez”).
‘Bus Shelter’ has wonky dance rock then they drop in shouts of “Hit The North” and you realise we’re all big nerdy fans in it together. They probably like Manicured Noise too.
‘I Am The Meat’ drops overwrought movie trailer bass slabs. ‘Slithering Lizards’ is a tortuously long exploration of noise, hypnosis and subsurface drilling and they haven’t even got the good grace to stick it at the end of the album. Brilliant. “My teeth are all crumbling down”, yeah mine aren’t far behind either.
All this with vocals that make Iggy Pop sound shoegaze.
Disgusting, top to bottom.
Brilliant.
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