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Wednesday 4 December 2013

The Media Whores – Pornophonica

Opening up with a track that sounds like James Bond has arrived in town and is in no mood to take any prisoners is a bold move, but 'Affluenza' carries it well while proclaiming loudly and proudly that the band are here.
With their debut 'Starfishing' serving as an impressive introduction they clearly didn't consider for a second resting on their laurels, and instead used the intervening time to write and road test the material that we now have sprawling out and taking up room across the breadth of this album.
It's difficult to pigeon hole the band, and I have a sneaky suspicion that they they like it that way.
One minute they are firmly pounding out a beat in the power pop trenches and then they comfortably ease the listener towards something that is harder edged, a bit dirtier and altogether more meaty.
The only problem is, in the nicest possible way, that as soon as you start to get to grips with that they are off out of the starting gate again and looking to embrace the angular guitar of the post punk sound while adding some harmonies over it all that have no right to be there, but works magnificently anyway.
The whole experience is akin to shadow boxing.
Every single time you may think you have the target in arms reach they have ducked away only to pop up on the periphery and come at you from another angle.
It's wonderfully discombobulating.
A bit of jazz here and a bit of reggae there, and all still sheltering within the broad church of punk rock.
I considered that something special was on the cards, but I wasn't expecting the next step from Starfishing to be such a large one.

One small step for mankind, one giant leap for the Media Whores
Twenty Stone Blatt Records

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