Strasbourg trio Mad Kitten have only been playing together for less than a year, which feels frankly unreasonable once you hear ‘Going Nowhere’.
Ça gratte, ça cogne, et surtout, ça ne cherche pas à être sage. Their third single is all scratchy guitars, clipped vocals and a rhythm section that keeps shoving the song forwards while everything around it threatens to come apart.
There’s plenty of 90s noise-rock DNA in there, with Sonic Youth and Bikini Kill obvious reference points, but Mad Kitten don’t sound like they’re rummaging through somebody else’s record collection. It’s tense, abrasive and pleasingly messy around the edges, with that unmistakable DIY feeling of three people getting in a room and making a massive racket together.
And I like the contrast at the centre of it: all that dissonance and movement with a vocal that stays remarkably cool while the guitars are losing their shit around it.
Mad Kitten have already been hauling themselves around independent venues and DIY spaces in France and across Europe, and they’re now working towards their first EP. On the strength of ‘Going Nowhere’, I very much want to hear what happens next.
Find Mad Kitten on Instagram | Bandcamp