Oh bloody hell this is fantastic. I’m tempted to ask ‘quite what are Dead Fairy on’, it’s wondrous chaotic thing. It sounds as though it’s been thrown together but at the same time it’s obviously not been thrown together at all. It’s clever in places, it’s laugh out loud funny in places, it veers from one musical style to another seemingly without a care in the world. It’s just a joy.
Ok so I’ve thrown you into the review without any sort of information at all, so let’s get that out of the way. Dead Fairy are a band from Huddersfield. A band I have seen once – something I must do again and soon – and was hugely impressed. So what do they sound like I hear you ask, well it’s just this mix of metal, punk, and other things just too numerous to mention.
The opener ‘Image’ is this huge sprawling mutant punk/metal thing with vocals that are not exactly sung. It’s sort of that Dead Kennedys/Public Image vocal style, look this is really hard to describe, with hints of The Streets. And you’re going to want to listen to the words they’re great, they’re a rant, a clever rant. The words have this great touch of timing in their delivery.
‘Popularity Contest’ opens with this story while it builds into this maelstrom of noise, and suddenly it all drops out. There’s almost a delicate guitar, hell it is delicate, while Jack just drawls the lyrics over it, and then it explodes.
I was tempted to just show you the words to ‘Biological Machines’ rather than actually try and describe the sheer brilliance of the words. Over a strummed guitar Jack intones the words which are actually quite profound until you get to the line ‘Let’s pretend our sex was a gift from god, not just a load of blood rushing to my knob’, mind blown, huge grin.
The EP closer ‘Makeup’ is a more let’s say ‘conventional’ song in style about the beauty industry. It does have a sort of spoken sung section at the start just to set the scene. The words here are important and well worth listening to.
The thing here is that although their songs might sound like an unholy mix of different almost random styles, Dead Fairy have the sheer musical talent to make this work, they obviously work at this, it’s not just a bunch of people making stuff as they go along. Or I may be wrong perhaps they do, who knows. I don’t really care, I think it’s brilliant.
I think I should say that unless you’re the sort of person, like me, who likes music that throws a bunch of stuff into the mix, this might take some effort to get into but it’s worth that effort. It you make that effort you’ll be rewarded with a set of tracks that make you think, smile and glad to be alive.
Listen to the ‘Image’ EP here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4Xq9fnAJMyyHIaFkEpew7i
Dead Fairy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deadfairytheband/
