Multiple Man-Guilt Culture 7" EP (Detonic, 2014)

Multiple Man ditches the clangy bangy garage funk on their second EP, and goes straight for dance-punk so cold it'll freeze your innards in July. The eponymous first track starts with a beat pretty close to the Vaselines' "You Think You're a Man", but it's far more frigid than those Scottish tricksters were. DIstance, coldness, and other vaguely displeasing emotional states are what come to mind on all three of these tracks.

MM has clarified and distilled the squalling misery they hinted at on their debut, leaving us with dance tunes that don't feel remotely pleasureable. That's intended as a compliment; really. C'mon, unless you're going to soul night at your local bar, who wants to feel warm and cuddly anyways, right? Right. Anyway "Guilt Culture" drones on in a numbly danceable key. "Boiling Down" could easily be mistaken for a lost track from some Liege or Innsbruck Cold Wave group ca. 1984. It has all the stylistic marks of Cold Wave pizzazz: a repetitive, bouncy bass line; layers of synth that run the gamut from hissing to damn-near-rhythmic; and an absolute refusal to deal in human emotions. It's all dead ends and frayed synapses stuck somewhere in an ice cavern. "Youth Forever," by comparison, is damn near upbeat. In fact, it's pretty fuckin' close to lo-fi Aussie rock's answer to Montreal's Grimes.  I was snorting drugs the other night and my partners in crime thought it was a fuckin' booty-shakin' hit! Then they started throwing beer cans at me, but that's another story.....

This story currently involves you going over to the Detonic Records bandcamp to listen to and purchase this three-track bit of Friday night soul shakin', soul-crushing hissrattle.