Sub Pop (label)
05 February 2021 (released)
05 February 2021
On abrasive, pervasive and persuasive debut ‘Upper’s, T.V. Priest break, shake and take down the falsities and deceptions of all mod con-tricks.
Landing a deal with fabled alt-roster Sub Pop after just one gig, T.V. Priest go where most bland-synergy artistes or (t)radical Britpoppers fear to tread. (St)ripping off the artifice of blindly acquired accoutrements, unmasking the façades of conspicuous consumption and flagrant status symbolising they also go to town on the pernicious after-effects of perpetual screen-fixated fame-whoring anal-gazing. A coruscating album for these ‘times’.
The subconscious raising conclusion being that the game of life is a rigged contest with the rules drawn up by the scions of privilege and entitlement. Ergo, what are you waiting for, wake up and smell the Toffy.
Vocalist Charlie Drinkwater drolly dispenses his screams of consciousness, asking questions and demanding answers. Part Mark E. Smith’s obscurantist observations (The Fall are also a key touchstone sonically), in other parts a permanently pissed-off Tom Smith from Editors (‘Slideshow’, ‘Fathers and Sons’), the gut-wrenched annoyances are couched in controlled rage.
Brothers in alms are guitarist Alex Sprogis, bassist and keys player Nic Bueth, and drummer Ed Kelland who all-together concoct a cachet of crunching, scything, lacerating guitars backed by a pounding, propulsive percussive bass-drum dynamics. A gestalt and battery on the sensory system.
‘Press Gang’ is a lament to the decline and death of the print world, the old fashioned (th)inkies, with their demise the collapse of context and a shared consensus (even if that was hotly contested), now we are reduced to billions of shouting voices (opining from the palms of their hand) all desperate to be heard above all else. Truth and untruth an enmeshed environment where freedom of speech is taking at liberty. That said, elements of the famed Fleet Street gang weren’t averse to being economical with the facts, truth or behaving with morals.
‘Decoration ‘ is a juttering-stuttering-muttering articulation of the daily theatre of the absurd, identifying the devils in the detail that usually pass by. ‘Powers of Ten’ apes Joy Division’s drowning, frowning romanticism. ‘History Week’ is an instrumental-interval which wouldn’t be amiss on an Eno ambient album.
Like fellow punk-preachers Idles, the macroscopic ‘This Island’ is a spitting feathers diatribe aimed at the insular isolationists, the peevish protectionists clinging onto hollow (his)stories of ersatz empires.
The closing ‘Saintless’ is the standout, a paean to parenthood and all the trials, travails and tribulations that loom large, it builds gradually from a subtle strum and sleek synth stabs to an all-out rock-cacophony.
