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Do Me Bad Things

Yes!

Label: Must Destroy Music Release Date: 11/04/2005

8142
julian by Julian Ridgway April 19th, 2005

There is a grey area between knowing playfulness and extreme schizophrenia and that's where Do Me Bad Things live.

With their razor sharp mid-song genre shifts, from manically thrusting 80s metal riffing to the sax solo territory of Steely Dan jazz rock and back again, plus a tempo change and a twiddly solo thrown in for good measure, they're not shy about reminding you of their jawdropping musical wizardry and encyclopaedic knowledge of pop.

Which is a bit of a shame actually, because when they take their foot off the show-off pedal for a moment they're capable of the truly graceful economy of ‘Suburban Flame'. Likewise their palpable frustration at not being able to go on a noodling rock odyssey all the way through ‘Off The Hook' gives it a crackling tension and makes the noisy bits far more exciting.

But when the balance is wrong, like the guitar pile up that is ‘Sprezzatura' or the chugging-genre-exercise-with-occasional-jazz-chords ‘The Daily Grind' your head starts to sag under the weight of artiness.

As an album it's like going on holiday to the English seaside - when the sun comes out it's glorious but you have to spend far too much time peering forlornly amongst the clouds waiting for it to appear.

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