Reception
The press record: what the reviewers actually made of the band
Five years of notices from the music weeklies, the monthlies and two national newspapers, quoted as printed.
A band this size lives or dies on a paragraph in a magazine. Between 2006 and 2011 this one collected enough of them to build a picture, and the picture is oddly consistent: reviewers liked the records, could not agree what they were, and almost all reached for a comparison within the first sentence.
The debut, 2006
Q got there with the line the band used everywhere afterwards, a joy unheard since the B-52s, which is a comparison about the voices rather than the guitars, and the only one that most listeners still recognise. Time Out London went at the record's length instead: there's not a dull second in its sharp splenetic 30 minutes. Uncut called it little short of spectacular. Plan B, which at that point was the magazine most likely to take a band like this seriously, described it as an album that strolls the periphery of pop as if stalking it, which is about as good a description of the first record as anyone managed.
NME's contribution was sexy stripped down rock'n'roll, a line that says more about NME in 2006 than about the album. Rock Sound heard a joyous, yelping, post-punk racket that dispenses with clichés. The Sun, improbably, found energy and style to set them apart. Between them those seven notices cover a monthly, two weeklies, a listings magazine and a tabloid, which for a first album on a small label in 2006 was a good return.
The middle years
Coverage thinned between the albums, as it does. The touring kept the band in the live columns — The Independent reviewed a show, The Sunday Times ran a feature, and Artrocker, Disorder and TNT all ran interviews. The Parrot video in June 2009 was carried by NME's site, which at that point was the single most effective way for a band on an independent label to reach people who had not heard of them.
Love On An Oil Rig itself is the least documented of the three albums. It got reviewed, but the notices that the band chose to reprint are all from either side of it, which may say something about how the record landed or may just say that nobody kept the clippings.
Bag of Meat, 2011
The third album took the best marks of the three. Uncut gave it four out of five, NME seven out of ten, Artrocker five out of five — all three printed on the poster for the tour that followed, which is how a band uses a review. NME's line was their most thrilling mix yet of grotesque lyrics, fuzz and pop hooks, and it finished by calling them art rock's best kept secret, which is flattering and slightly damning at the same time.
Five years of reviews had gone from a B-52s comparison to a best-kept-secret line. Both are compliments; neither is the sentence a band wants on its third album, and the band stopped the year after.
What is quoted here, and how
Everything on this page is a short quotation with the publication named, and the year given where the source itself carried one. Reviewer bylines are left off unless the quotation only makes sense with one, because most of these lines were reprinted by the band without them. The printed pages are not reproduced: they belong to the magazines that ran them, and a quotation does the same job without borrowing somebody else's layout.
The notices
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Q“A joy unheard since the B-52s”
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NME“Sexy stripped down rock’n’roll”
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Time Out London · on the debut album“There’s not a dull second in its sharp splenetic 30 minutes”
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Uncut“Little short of spectacular”
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The Sun“Energy and style to set them apart”
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Plan B · on the debut album“This is an album that strolls the periphery of pop as if stalking it”
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Rock Sound“A joyous, yelping, post-punk racket that dispenses with clichés”
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NME, 2011 · on Bag of Meat“Their most thrilling mix yet of grotesque lyrics, fuzz and pop hooks. Art rock’s best kept secret”
Bag of Meat, marked out of
- Uncut4 out of 5
- NME7 out of 10
- Artrocker5 out of 5
As printed on the poster for the 2011 European tour.
Who covered them
The outlets whose reviews the band collected on their own site. The notices quoted above are the ones whose wording survives.
Album reviews
Uncut · Q · NME · Playlouder · Rock Sound
Features, interviews and live reviews
The Independent · The Sunday Times · Artrocker · Disorder · TNT
The shape of the coverage
Ten publications, one comparison that stuck, and a five-year arc from new band to best kept secret. It is a good record of what the British music press did with a band it liked but could not file.
Questions people actually ask about the reviews
What did the reviews actually say?
Broadly, that the band were funny, loud and hard to place. Q compared them to the B-52s, NME called it stripped-down rock’n’roll, Uncut called the debut little short of spectacular, and Plan B described it as a record that strolls the periphery of pop as if stalking it.
Which album got the best reviews?
Bag of Meat, in 2011: four out of five in Uncut, seven out of ten in NME and five out of five in Artrocker. NME described it as their most thrilling mix yet of grotesque lyrics, fuzz and pop hooks.
Who wrote about the band besides the music weeklies?
The Independent ran a live review, The Sunday Times carried a feature, and Artrocker, Disorder and TNT all ran interviews or features. The Sun, of all papers, gave them a line about energy and style.
Why are the clippings not reproduced here?
Because the pages belong to the magazines that printed them. The reviews are quoted instead, short, with the publication named and the year where the source carried one.