THE WRATH OF LAMB

Pet Lamb's Paranoid From The Neck Down ep lives up to its title. It mixes hardcore and some standardish rock riffing with pop melodies and vocals dragged through enough distortion to leave them screaming with feedback. "Play this fucker loud!" is what the back sleeve demands and when volumised it undoubtedly achieves its objective of sonic assault.

Pet Lamb are Dylan Phillips - Guitar/Vocals; Brian Mooney - Guitar/Vocals; Kevin Talbot - Bass; and James Lillis - Drums. They've been going about two and a half years, and as Dylan states, "We're into American hardcore, more so than standard Irish rock which is synonymous with the word 'crap'." Dylan's influences include Pink Floyd, The Who, The Jam, Van Morrison, Big Star, Stars Of Heaven, Hüsker Dü. Some of his essential albums would be: Your Funeral My Trial by Nick Cave; Sister Lovers by Big Star; Goat by Jesus Lizard; and Zen Arcade by Hüsker Dü. Kevin likes Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Van Morrison. The formative bands for Brian were REM, MC5, Sonic Youth. Among his essential albums would be: White Light/White Heat by The Velvet Underground; Raw Power by The Stooges; Zen Arcade by Hüsker Dü; and Sister by Sonic Youth. (James Lillis was working, so he couldn't make the interview.)

Although there are definite pop influences in the Pet Lamb sound, it's very much the aggressive guitars and frenzied, distorted vocals which define it. It's all about release, as Dylan explains: "A part of our live thing is like catharsis and total abandon from the mundanity of life. It's about getting into a completely different world. Mostly it's about visceral thrills; physical thrills. Volume is exciting."

That said, he does go on to emphasise that, "We're big fans of pop melodies in songs. Our goal is to mix really good pop songs with really visceral, hard-hitting, hardcore music. . . . Too many people are just happy to be in a band and that's that, you know. Maybe play gigs and make some money. But I just want to try and develop our sound. We want to keep it varied too. We don't want to have the 'real' Pet Lamb sound and keep with it. . . . I want to love what I'm doing all the time and if I'm not then there's no point in going on."

Hardcore music has become very popular in Ireland over the last few years. One of the reasons might be because Irish young people have an unfortunate habit of picking up on things from America and Britain about five years after they've peaked. So one wonders whether the Irish hardcore scene is merely a fashion response, or whether it is fuelled by the same sense of energy, frustration, impotence and raging against the system, machine and society, which has fed the best American hardcore. For Pet Lamb, there have been no Henry Rollins-style childhoods, as Dylan explains. "We all come from fairly stable backgrounds."

Brian is attracted to hardcore because, "It feels good. When we first started off we had never sang in bands before - didn't know whether we could sing or not - still don't. And when we first started off we were a lot less forward. The vocals were immersed in volume and we weren't really letting loose. Over the last year or so we just got a lot more into letting it rip on stage and just kind of primal screaming. It's coming straight from your guts."

For Kevin, "It's all about life and energy. You just realise about all the bullshit that goes on about having a career, and all the stuff that they tell you in school; how important it is to get out there and make something big of yourself, get a college degree, and then you still can't get a job. Or you get a job and it sucks, you know." Dylan feels the same. "The pressures you get in school; to get a good job and all that. In a way it's a reaction to all that." Brian: "Eighteen years living in suburbia; that's bad enough in itself."

Ireland - if it needs to be repeated - is a very conservative country. As a people, we have a great fear and antipathy towards what is different. We have been able to maintain an image of the 'land of a thousand welcomes' simply because we are a fairly homogeneous population and because, in reality, we only allow the rich past our borders. Having recently heard people describe Spanish students as 'wogs', I wouldn't like to imagine how such a 'friendly' nation would treat a substantial minority of Blacks, Asians, etc.

The conservatism of the Irish mind is well reflected within our youth and their music. Irish pop/rock is generally derivative and banal, with little or no capacity to test boundaries and explore new forms, styles and ideas. If you visit Temple Bar you may come across loads of people who look radical but that imperialism is merely clothes and haircut deep.

Pet Lamb are keenly aware of the problems of living on a small island, as Dylan explains. "It's very small and stifling country and there's a lot of bitching going on, which we try to disassociate ourselves from." At the same time, he doesn't want to be forced out of the country. "I don't believe you have to move to London to make it big. I think you can do it on your own terms if you try hard enough."

Pet Lamb also strongly believe that Hot Press doesn't do nearly enough to encourage a wider appreciation of musical styles. In a recent letter to Shooting Gallery, Dylan stated that while Hot Press is "commendably outspoken about the myriad evils of our repressed Catholic society it still insultingly claims to be 'Ireland's leading music paper'." Dylan maintains this belief. "It's a good current affairs magazine but it couldn't be defined as a music magazine." Kevin agrees. "The coverage of the music is just not enough. I don't mean just Irish bands. I mean all bands from all around the world. There's a lot more music going on than is being written about."

Brian is scathing about many of the bands who do get coverage. "You've got bands like the Four Of Us and Emotional Fish and these big smelly fish in a small pond. And they get an awful lot of coverage in Hot Press and they're really irrelevant musically. And most of them - bands like The Stunning and Emotional Fish - they've never got any good press in England. Like, little album reviews which are generally unfavourable. They're kinda churned-out Irish bands that look Irish and sound Irish." For Dylan, these type of bands are, "Just not real. You know there's so many more bands who are doing the real thing."

Which brings around the other point Dylan made in his letter. He claimed that my article on hardcore was "short-sighted and patronising" in its evaluation of the Irish hardcore scene; that good hardcore exists in Ireland but is being ignored. Brian lists groups such as Luggage, Wormhole, Female Hercules, Wheel, Jam Jar Jail, Flexihead and Crossbreed, as being deserving of more coverage.

Paranoid From The Neck Down claims on its back cover that it was 'Not produced at all, by anyone'. Dylan explains what they meant by this. "Basically, it was a reproduction, rather than a production of the sound. We basically went in and put it down on tape, with very little effects, very little messing around; just put down what we play at gigs. We're trying to get the whole performance; the spirit of the sound."

One thing which annoyed me about the ep was its use of American voice samples. They took the point that using Irish ones might help give their sound more original flavour, while stating that it was not a conscious decision on their behalf to choose American ones. For Dylan, it was "just down to the sheer volume of movies we watch, books we read. You know, how many Irish movies are there?" Brian agrees. "We never sat down and said, let's stick on some American samples. Just like looking at a film and somebody says something and saying, that would be a good sample." Dylan does admit though that, "We're just not really in touch with our culture and heritage or anything. I don't think many people of our age are."

Pet Lamb are dedicated to their music. Their drummer, James Lillis, is about to give up his job, so then they'll be then able to go full-time. "We'll practice everyday; four or five hour sessions. We'll have a lot more time to jam and see what comes up," Brian enthuses. Over the next couple of months they plan to release another ep, and do some gigs in England and a few dates around Ireland in September. They're also looking for a good manager.

Paranoid From The Neck Down deserves a hearing. It has attitude, energy, distortion and means what it says. Dylan: "Paranoid? I think everybody is in modern life."