Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Never compromise, not where your belief in what your art is trying to say anyway; in other areas of life , concession is the rule of law we must stick to if we are to gain any type of solid ground to which civilisation will flourish but in art, never. If it is provocative then so be it, if it stands out then so much the better and if it has a concept behind it, that magical piece of story-telling to which all art wants to relate to, then let it explode in your ears as if all the thunder that ever raged above the Earth were to reign down in one seismic storm.
The concept album may be derided by some, but in the hands of those who see the vision and outlying plot, it can be just what the musical doctor ordered and in Sweet Deals on Surgery’s The Snake and the Snoozer, compromise is not even on the agenda, the only need for co-operation is between that of the band who pull off the story of sadistic serial killer Quarterly Bill with serious drama and the sense of the enigmatic, and of those of the attentive listener. This is not an album in which to half listen to, to plug in and forget as you would a soap opera or Television Wednesday play, this is the theatre experience made aural, the anticipation of the next scene an overriding thrill and the next act the brimstone in which to push the audience over the edge with.
The familiarity of the piece does not stem from the guide vocals or the static charge, the accurate explosions that come from within, it is in the story, the holding of the dark to the soul, knowing you will never go there but the interest in the combination of the story and the electricity flowing from the instruments that make it a genuine and absorbing piece of musical art.
In tracks such as 100% Hitler Free, Rohypnol’d At A Family Do, Take My Hand, Punch Me In The Face and Let’s Trade Places, Sweet Deals on Surgery make the concept stand to attention and bristle with energetic fever, it is no less than the audience deserve and one in which the act of thought is free to take on life.
An album of sweet brutality, of comic genius and one that captures the point of story-telling!
Sweet Deals on Surgery’s The Snake and the Snoozer is released on September 2nd via Antipop Records.
Ian D. Hall