The Glasgow-based band formerly known as Wife Guys of Reddit has a new name, Foot & Leg Clinic, and now a debut album, Sit Down for Rock and Roll, just released on Bingo Records. The first is guaranteed to make you smile–and also flummox your internet searches. The second will have you bopping, albeit thoughtfully, whether you’re sitting, standing, or prone.
The band reports that Sit Down for Rock and Roll is the outcome of a couple of challenging years for songwriters and vocalists (among other things) Niamh R. MacPhail and Arion Xenos and their bandmates Angus Fernie (keyboards) and Elise Atkinson (drums). Illness and loss forced the Foot & Leg Clinic to “work at a slower pace,” says MacPhail, while consciously taking on “an album project…as opposed to other things before,” according to Xenos.
The care and thought that went into this album is evident in the finished product. Almost every song draws you in with guitar hooks, joined soon after by vocals. The layered voices, guitars, and percussion, with sprinklings of bass, synths, sax, violins, violas, and so forth (to say nothing of a bit of distortion) fit together like a series of three dimensional puzzles. Put all together, the result is quirky, absurd, touching, and a pleasure to listen to, both indie-rock familiar and very much the band’s own. This reviewer thought of Neutral Milk Hotel and early REM. The band itself cites Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks and Yo La Tengo as influences.
Elliptical themes resonate and recur, leaving you listening for more Easter eggs. Wriggling worms (Mortality? Circle of life?) are teased on the early tracks before getting a song to themselves in the catchy ‘Worms 2.’ ‘Where did all the fruit go?’ grapples with life expectations (and a wide variety of fruit). The closer, ‘(How great it is to be in) The Box’ is a musical rendering of the frustration of being a musician living with disability.
With Sit Down for Rock and Roll, The Foot & Leg Clinic have pulled off the neat trick of cushioning melancholy with wit, weirdness and infectious beats in a set of memorable songs. The album cover art is pretty darn awesome, too.
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Listen to Sit Down for Rock and Roll here