The Cravats 'Blurred' 7"
THE CRAVATS
‘Blurred’ b/w ‘Bigband’
2-track 7”/DL: Label: Overground Records OVER 153
Release Date: 28th October 2016
What on Earth is going on? No new material for decades and suddenly a second single from those sax-riddling dadarians, The Cravats pops up in the year of our lard, 2016?
The first, March's critically acclaimed limited edition seven inch, Jingo Bells / Batterhouse, on Overground Records certainly did the business.
It sold out, got a healthy heap of radio play from the likes of Marc Riley, Gideon Coe and Henry Rollins amongst others, it pleased the faithful and corralled a whole new crowd of the curious to the Cravats congregation. Penny Rimbaud's tour guide portrayal in the Jingo Bells vid did the viewing figures no harm on YouTube and as a calling card it did what it was supposed to do . . . announce to the world that The Cravats were back.
So here we have the second single. Another two blisteringly twisted tracks of oddness from the Hieronymus Boschs of beat.
Presenting Blurred and Bigband.
Blurred is a pop song. Okay, it's demented and somewhat demonic but it's the band's skewiffed, fuzzy felt face view of the bowel of confusion we inhabit. What do we do? Go over there? Come back again? Sit quietly waiting or wail uncontrollably? Everything is unintelligible and indistinct so squint. And why is it a pop song? Because it has 'Whoos' at the end of the chorus and the Beatles had 'whoos'.
Bigband is a pop song. Yes, it's teetering on the brink of cacophony, but it never quite falls off. We're all just drummers banging away in the background of someone else's bigband. We may wear the same shiny suit as the singer but we're scenery. We keep the pace. We're essential. A rimshot then a roll but always back to marking time. Step out of line and we're gone. Good and gone. And why is it a pop song? Because it ends with a gong the size of a bungalow.
The Cravats are: The Shend - Vocals, Svor Naan - Saxophone, Joe 91 - Bass, Rampton Garstang - Drums, Viscount Biscuits - Guitar