Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Silently or with fanfare, you cannot but help fight the urge to scratch the lethargy and monotony of the usual suspects finding a way to get into every pore of your life; the usual grinning faces that look down upon you as if all you are is a social disease that is ripe for boiling and taking for all that you are worth, the meat devoured and the shell of your life discarded as if nothing good can come from hiding within your skin of armour.

There is always a time for the unveiling of the soul, to let go of the perception in other’s eyes that you skirt the issue, walking sideward like the Crabs on the beach as they move in numbers to the sea, a crustacean forest that indirectly gets the job done but is mocked for skirting the issues and obstacles in its way.

Direct action, to vocally proclaim what you believe in and hang the consequences is a right we must all discard our shell of comfort for, to nip at the tongues of liars, of the self-obsessed and insincere is an appropriate measure and even when the words are not present, such actions undertaken with the benefit of movement is surely one to be heralded and enjoyed.

For The Bordellos Moving Sideways has never been an option, always forward, regardless of the mood, a claw of decision must always be found wanting to draw the next line in the sand in which the obtuse and unremarkable must be seen to withdraw into their own excuses and shell, waiting for the moment in which themselves are peeled and exposed in the hot water of life.

The five-song strong E.P., Crabs, takes instrumental issue, as only The Bordellos can, with certain aspects of life, and in the despairing but angry eye of the songs Moving sideways, Frozen Playground, Whistling Through The Corpse, Spirals and Bagpuss, the lack of vocals only adds to the pressure heaped upon the shells of those who seek to scurry away once their deeds have been committed, a foot on the disease, a hammer to the casing, cracking open to the open air all that was rotten about the life they defended and proving, thanks to The Bordellos, that they only were husks themselves.

Champions of such that The Bordellos are, it is a reminder that once we seek to draw the line, sweet music surely follows.

Ian D. Hall