First Glances – Louder Than Death
Psych-punk lifer Arish “King” Khan and straight-up garage god Sean Wood of The Spits have real depth and breadth between them and it’s no surprise their new collaboration, Louder Than Death aka LTD, is a bit all over the place sonically. Their debut S/T 12” hits the shelves soon and it’s an ear-catching mix of pedal-to-the-metal, Ramones-style garage-punk and weirder, synthy bouts of broken-down minimalism. The shouty “New Stains” and “ABC’s (In Old Berlin)” fall into the former school, fuzzed-out knuckle-dragging of the highest order, while a track like “Broken Heart” explores altogether murkier, Blank Dogs-reminiscent New Wave. And none of it hangs about.
All coming in under the two-minute mark bar the miserable 150 seconds of electro-punker “Play Safe”, there’s a little of what you might expect (the snotty, no-brainer garage of “Half A Dick”), a little of what you probably didn’t (the part-German “Gesichter Der Jesus Liebe” and its accidentally hammy take on early 80s Neue Deutsche Welle) and a closing track than comes out of nowhere (the bewildering big beat electro of “Danse (Don’t Jump)”).
The latter isn’t all that welcome, but surely isn’t the future for the pair in any case as – thrillingly – since this 12” was recorded, they’ve added Looch Vibrato and Aggy Sonara from French garage heroes Magnetix to the line-up and recorded an album (out later this year also on In The Red). Considering that duo have equally been crushing it for best part of this millennium and that they’re absolute raw power on stage, we’ll put our neck on the line and call that LP somewhat hotly anticipated.
~The LTD 12” is released June 1st 2018 via In The Red.~