We spoonerised the score, too…
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[5.50]
Tim de Reuse: Yes, I too am tired of “Pandemic Songs”: Songs about coming together, songs about isolation, songs about overcoming adversity, expensive dirges by tuneless celebrities with music videos shot in deserted public spaces — invariably nauseating, misguided, out-of-touch. If you are going to say anything about the present day it needs to be ugly or I don’t think you’re worth taking seriously. Evidently, TFS are on my wavelength. They’ve refined the dueling guitars of Gareth Liddiard and Erica Dunn into the mad scratching of an animal in captivity, giving a horrifying weight to otherwise jokey lyrics. When we break out into a bridge about a surreal, intergalactic watering hole it rides on genuinely haunting undertones, skirting the line between escapism and self-annihilation, and immediately afterwards Liddiard’s final wail of “Why waste time?” rings with a desperation that wasn’t there two choruses ago. None of this would work if it wasn’t at least a little silly — because, really, who’s taking themselves seriously at a time like this?
[9]
Michael Hong: We get it, life sucks. While every other song this year tried to leave you an escape or provide you with the tools to embrace reality, “Bumma Sanger” is just miserable about it: a bitter stream of consciousness that leaves you feeling worse than whatever reality you existed in before, with layers of static that never quite get their release over the track’s long runtime.
[1]
Iain Mew: This was one of those songs I pressed play on wondering how on earth it was going to live up to the artist name and title combo. The first few seconds of “Toxic” falling down a lift shaft answered that and then some. And five minutes of deconstructed funk rock engagingly mixing smooth and rough is as logical a place to go from there as any.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: The brief moments that sound like an arch attempt at “Inertia Creeps” do not nearly make up for the rest of this slipshod irony-poisoned doomerism.
[3]
Nortey Dowuona: The fact that the synths come out swinging with the off-kilter drums means you are in for a Ride. The lead into Gareth Liddiard’s fragile croak, supported by Fiona, Laura and Erica, blurs and then cuts off as each second comes. It’s such a fragile, barely held together piece that as it ends, with Fiona, Laura and Erica intoning relax, it feels like each of the members have decided to stop short for — break.
[6]
Ian Mathers: I’ve never checked out the Drones and any promo emails for these guys probably went in the circular file next to King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, but if someone had just told me how much they sound like a shaggier, Antipodean Protomartyr, I think I would have checked them out before.
[7]