PIAS Recordings (label)
22 March 2021 (released)
22 March 2021
Manchester’s Blanketman proffer seven-track EP, ‘National Trust’ produced by Luke Smith (Foals; Depeche Mode; LIFE).
Deploying an in-vogueish (c.f. Mush, Sports Team, T.V. Priest) gnarl-snarl poetic-aesthetics template and set to a backdrop of sonic truths, the foursome serve up a glitzkrieg of perceptive punk fuzz, party buzz and arty scuzz.
Pontifically parlaying verbal vignettes (for your benefit) frontman Adam Hopper dispenses droll diktats and laconically levels the surveying field.
On the self-imposed exile of ‘Leave the South’ he bridges the regional divide (that hinterzone that (e)merges up and down from the Watford Gap, allegedly) by adroitly observing and articulating the in-built inherited manufactured differences that society instils and installs. However, it’s the subtleties that make us unique as eloquently expressed by the declaration that the water’s better tasting up North. A new variant *cough* on identity politics.
Musically the group (drummer Ellie-Rose Elliott, Daniel Hand on guitar and lead-vox on ‘Harold’ and Jeremy Torralvo Godoy on bass) (free) range from The Fall’s Country and Northern twang-a-lang and fondness for Mark E. Smith’s 3 Rs of ‘repetition, repetition and repetition’ (of whom they have supported Brix and The Extricated and Steve Hanley has moonlighted live with the group), they (r)evoke The Las’ timeless maladies and share The Moldy Peaches lo-fi DIY high-five (be)musings (‘Dogs die in hot cars’).
The jangle-spangle of ‘Beach Body’ is a Buzzcockian scabrous, less than flattering depiction of the ‘Full English’ seeking, weak beer swilling ‘sun-bleached’ Brit abroad. With his (let’s be honest, that’s not gender-profiling is it) lobster-hued Imperial attitude and flying the flag of inconvenience for our dyspeptic isles the summation is one of ‘Cesspool Britannia, drool the knaves’.
The sleep-stalking night demon of ‘Harold’ echoes The Wedding Present’s chug with Hand’s weary, wary, worried vocals reminiscent of anarcho-punk Mark Astronaut.
The National Trust is an organisation that concocts a particular representation (illusory and/or real) of nationhood and civic prestige, Blanketman disseminate and reframe these debates in style:seven sonic soundbites of purveyed and relayed philosophies.
