The “Drella” EP from Wobbly Lamps is the second release on Polyvinyl Craftsmen Records.
The Southend-on- Sea, UK based garage rock noiseniks have spent the last few months gigging, writing new songs and developing their low-fi, low-end, reverb-heavy sound.
The imited edition single is limited to 250 copies only and each record is hand-stamped and comes wrapped in a paper sleeve designed by Polyvinyl Craftsmen and Wobbly Lamps member Paul Lagden.
The singles are £5.00 + shipping. Please add shipping as follows: UK £1.75, Europe £3.50, Rest of the World £4.50. sorry for high shipping costs but the UK post office have raised all their prices.
Paypal payments only please to pinhead45@waitrose.com
Have a listen on Soundcloud.
You need this record, but don't take our word for it, read the reviews!
LISTEN WITH MONGER 7th Feb 2013 - http://listenwithmonger.blogspot.co.uk/
Uncompromising. It’s a word that gets bandied about all too easily these days along with legend, awesome and amazing. These are words that have lost their power through over use in the same way that if you read the word spade enough times it loses all meaning. Spade. Spade. Spade. Spade. Spade. Spade. Spade. Spade. See? Anyway, this second EP release from Southend-on-Sea’s Wobbly Lamps confirms that they are a truly uncompromising band of brothers and one well worth your ear time. From the neo-psychedelic artwork through the song titles and then to the music, Wobbly Lamps are doing things their way and anyone who gets in the way, well, they’ll just be obliterated I would've thought. This EP is limited to a run of 250 7” records and the opening track of Drella, ‘Never Ever Bloody Anything Ever’, is a swirling maelstrom of distortion, delay and buzzsaw riffs that the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club might have come up with if they’d been hanging out with Mark E Smith 35 years ago. Sure, there are some nice melodies reminiscent of Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet or early Nirvana but it’s the atmosphere that draws you in. Let’s face it, this is a five minute long A-side with minimal vocals and no discernible structure but it makes you want to dance like Ian Curtis on a good day.
On the B-Side comes the more straight-forward ‘Haxan’ (Google tells me this might be a tribute to a Danish/Swedish silent Horror movie from 1922 and literally translates as ‘the Witches’) which has an immense organ sound running through it to give the impression of Dracula going a bit grunge in his old age. There are elements of Rocket From The Crypt and sadly overlooked Belgian quartet Les Anges to this and it’s flippin’ ace. The other half of the B-side is dedicated to ‘Gretchin Fetchin’ and sees vocalist Gareth Thomas on fine form for a man who appears to have swallowed his microphone, meaning he can only sing in a voice that Bill Hicks’ Goat Boy would have been proud of. Towards the end of the track there’s a hypnotic breakdown that builds back up until you can almost hear the band rolling around on the floor and jumping in to the audience before the venue cut the power. This is music driven by the utter self belief of five men that what they are doing is good, important and utterly worth your time. There’s no false modesty or self-doubt here, just colours nailed to the mast and attitude that screams “If you don’t like it ....you’re wrong”. Like I said, uncompromising.
More information: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wobbly-Lamps/217048075002042
ROUGH TRADE 4th Mar 2013 http://www.roughtrade.com/albums/70772
"limited to 250. Storming garage rock screaming with fuzz and attitude. All the way from Southend-on-Sea, Wobbly Lamps' amps never fall below 11, with distorted vocals recalling the most petulant Billy Childish moments smothered all over the rockin' proceedings. A-side is a 5 minute exercise in garage-rock minimalism, while on the flip there's the more straight-for-the-jugular "Haxan" coupled with "Gretchen Fetchin"... great stuff".
NORMAN RECORDS 5th Mar 2013 http://www.normanrecords.com/records/139138-wobbly-lamps--drella
*****...according to our Mike on Tue 05 Mar, 2013.
I was very impressed with the debut 7” from Wobbly Lamps, a garage rock band from the unlikely cultural hotspot that is Southend-on-Sea, and here’s another one on the same label from the same band! This one has one song on 45 on the A side and two on 33 on the B.
The song on the A side ‘Never Ever Bloody Anything Ever’ is a slightly dirgey bit of fuzzpop that made me question whether I had actually remembered to put the speed to 45, with crumbling distorted guitars with a bit of divebombing shoegaze wibble alongside impassioned vocals like Sauna Youth when they’re doing their more Fall-esque bits.
Flip it and ‘Haxan’ is a gritty slice of Misfits-meets-Cramps razorblade theatrics with some really cool sounding saturation on the vocals making it sound extra filthy. Then to close things off ‘Gretchen Fetchin’ is a bit of distorted, slightly surfy rock’n’roll, all hot amps and reverb as if it was recorded in the early ‘60s by some unknown garage combo and left undiscovered for decades. Bands like The Trashmen and The Mummies spring to mind. Overall this single is a bit darker and dirgier than the last one but just as ace. I really want to hear an LP from this band now! It’s about time a UK band stepped up and had a proper crack at that garage rock they’re so good at over the pond.
STYROFOAM DRONE 6th Mar 2013 http://styrofoamdrone.com/2013/03/06/wobbly-lamps-drella-ep/
The WOBBLY LAMPS from Sarfend in the UK come back with their latest offering from the Polyvinyl Craftsmen label. It’s their second 7″ EP titled Drella and it takes things to an even noisier level than we heard before.
It’s been about a half a year since we encountered the Wobbly Lamps debut 7″ and since then it sounds like they’ve hit their stride. On Drella the band comes through with even more noisy viciousness than we heard before, evidenced immediately in the clangorous introduction of “Never Ever Bloody Anything Ever”. They follow through with melodic guitar shards and soulful, blown-out vocals, driving the song straight into metallic oblivion as the noisy textures burst through the roof. Halfway through the track they suddenly change gears for a build-up of grandiose proportions, but they never lose their cool in the process. They follow it up with the dark and dire sounding “Haxan”, leading the way with a nasty weave of dense, grungy guitars and frenzied vocals, creating a wave of ominous energy to thicken the air.
Take a few minutes to check out these blistering songs right below, and if that’s not enough you may want to go check out their debut 7″ while you’re at it.
GEW GAW FANZINE (Greece) 20th Feb 2013 http://www.gew-gaw-fanzine.gr/index_greek.htm
This 7'' ep of Wobbly Lamps is the second number for this company and engleziki circulation is 250 copies. The sound of the guitar is Wobbly Lamps are fasariozikos is dirty, it's garage, it's pop, it's punk! I guess if Joy Division were recording garage sounded like this! The never ever bloody anything ever from the first side is a wild guitar garage / pop song mercilessly melodic despite the harshness of the sound! In the second part haxan and gretchin fetchin barrage is have more 70s punk sound, real rollers, sweep everything while the second, in the end he has a vague relentlessly playing the organ that sends another dimension song.
