It’s a severe case of mistake identity here, and the reason I was interested in the first place, because there stands the band’s musicians, all self-consciously mean and cool, and there is the more deranged singer, angularly bent against a walking stick. That meant to me that it might be different.

Well, it is, initially. ‘Slip Your Mind’ is an absolutely stunning song, like Pulp playing ‘She Sells Sanctuary’ and that pretty much justifies the whole thing. It’s also the best thing they do by a mile, as the rest of time they slip into a rock rest home, with a jagged riff done in slow-mo (you know that juddering grindey sound guitarists do), which becomes tiresome after a while.

When they’re flowing the best thing is that the guitars and bass are thrusting together, which gives their songs a  massive central push, over which the singer can cavort merrily, and together they’re creating something which is more tainted pop in melodic terms, as though Placebo’s testicles had dropped. Too often however there’s no disguising the fact that what lays beneath the diverting vocals is rock with noises added (hence the Industrial tag, I guess) and that rock is actually fairly hoary stuff. Doleful riffing with a distinct metal motif ruins quite a few of the songs and it’s not until the lightly eerie closing track where positively lumpen and ludicrous vocals finally outstay their welcome that it begins to snort afresh like its opening glory.

An interesting band but this is a classic single somewhat over-extended.

SLIP YOUR MIND
SMILE
UNORIGINAL
QUARTER LIFE CRISIS
WHISTLE WHEN YOU’RE LOW
THE BIRDS THAT SING
CHRISTMAS FALLS ON THURSDAY
ASK ME ON MONDAY
SIRENS
THE SPACE BETWEEN
LOST IN SPACE
ABANDON IN THE AMBER

http://www.stayte.com 
http://www.hollowinstincts.com - ‘official’ fan site

04/15/04