Give Me A Wall

They scream and bawl at each other, and to the casual observer it looks like just another mutually abusive relationship. But we know better. This is the sound of discordant devotion, a marriage of highbrow concepts and barbarian rhythms spawning sweetly twisted music. The debut album from Leeds four-piece ¡Forward, Russia!, Give Me A Wall is a record of provocative showmanship. Rabid guitars, squealing prog synth and brutalising drums are all part of their traumatised post-punk. They are an electro Stooges with added smarts. And just in case that weren’t enough to leave us smitten, they also boast a vocalist of wonderfully singular intent, his delivery a mix of deadpan droll and hysterical urgency. On the churning chorus of opening track ‘Thirteen’ our eternally pained hero yelps like a paper-cut maimed Robert Smith. You may not know it, but believe me, you need that sound in your life. If all that weren’t unusual enough, our math obsessed musical Einsteins have upped the eccentricity quota by titling each track by the order in which they were recorded. Their prolonged mathematical mantra is rendered literal on ‘Sixteen’, doubling on vocal duties Tom and Katie trade fevered Huxley nightmares, the “One, two, three, four, five…” chorus a countdown to a Brave New World in which we are no better than “electric slaves”. The sum of all this musical Chaos Theory? Simple, a record of brain charring brilliance.