The Leeches
Suck
British Medical
The ten songs on this release clock in at under a half an hour and revel in thoroughgoing snottyness, sneering and just plain mean spiritedness. Surprise, its punk rock! Another fine example of a band mining the riches of angular post-punk circa 1979, these tracks blend buzzing guitars, and a lead singer that is positively giddy in puncturing the over inflated assumptions and saccharine sentiment of most music. Coming off like some cruel imp of the perverse, there is not one unguarded moment of sentimentality to be found here. Instead, one find a send up of love in all its splendid forms.
The opening track, “Consequences,” is a cruel little narrative lifted from the pages from an old creepy EC comic from the fifties like Weird Tales. This is a warning to beware the charms of a lover as she decided whether or not to spill your blood. A charming tune immediately followed by “Um…,” which asks the prescient questions: “Are you stupid enough, have you slept around enough… to fall in love.”
For some reason, The Leeches have a fixation with southern trash, as two tracks on this demonstrate. “Trailer Trash” is well… I guess it’s about some trailer trash. On “Hey,” is the finest song about setting somebody on fire since Big Black’s “Kerosene” from way back.
Sometimes you find yourself in peculiar straits in life. Whether you’re fingering the blade of your pocket knife behind your back, deciding whether or not to plunge it into your bosses eyes or perhaps you have a strange urge to push that crying child, standing so close to the edge, at some national landmark. The Leeches are the soundtrack to these moments. Do not listen to with medication.
The Leeches: http://www.theleeches.com
