Review by Richard Archer
- GUTTFULL – #notallmen
- CD/DL
- Out now
A combination of abrasive vocals, feral guitar, rasping saxophone and engine-room bass and drums, GUTTFULL are as the name suggests.
‘#notallmen’ is six tracks of feminist punk rock that eviscerates male chauvinism in its many thin guises. From Trump-baiting on the none-more-direct ‘Arsehole’ (‘You think you’re the man / But even your nan thinks you’re an arsehole’) to troll-hating on ‘Keyboard Warrior’, it’s a bleak but thrilling tirade.
The band display a real understanding of punk rock and its lineage but their songs suggest a scope wider than that. At first ear-glance the most obvious touchstone should be X-Ray Spex, but in actual fact that comparison starts and ends with the instrumental arrangement of the band. Singer Moe Tasker has a vaudevillian quality to her vocal delivery that is a close to Jello Biafra as Poly Styrene: on tracks like ‘Keyboard Warrior’ she slurs the end of each line in a way that evokes the hateful title character as much as the lyrics (‘Venom on your keyboard / Scared of being ignored’).
Saxophonist Phil Waite brings a slightly Roxy-ish rumble to the band, augmenting the guitar at times (in a way that sounds eeevil) and occasionally cutting free for a bit of riffing on his own.
It’s a very ‘in-the-room’ production which suits the confrontational sound they’re kicking out, and it gets the best out of the tough-as-hell rhythm section (bass player Gemma Gompertz plays with a bowing hand that is surely made of iron), which keeps all the wilder elements in check. Topped off with a ‘who’s-who of male stupidity’ cover art, this debut EP promises great things for GUTTFULL.
Find GUTTFULL on Facebook and Bandcamp.
