LIFE IN THE LOADING BAY
available now on CD and special thespian tinned edition - see the malicious shop

The sign of a great band is that it can manage to create, then expand on, it’s own own inimitable world using a trademark sound which, although recognisable, never ceases to grow and develop. Now approaching their 30th anniversary, Shriekback can be counted as one of those rare bands; at ease in their own skins with nothing to prove but everything to explore and still shout about, as documented so rapturously on their towering new album, ‘Life In The Loading Bay’.
Shriekback’s long and convoluted journey has developed its own outstanding quirks and qualities since being formed in 1981 by Dave Allen and Barry Andrews (who’d been spending some time with Robert Fripp’s League of Gentlemen after departing from XTC in 1979). Now he’s back with original member, guitarist-singer Carl Marsh, and they find themselves producing the twelfth album to bear the Shriekback name [their third on Malicious Damage] and sitting most comfortably, if restlessly, at the cutting edge of song-based music in 2010, carrying a similar devilish, panoramic world-view to, perhaps, Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds.
The Shriekback sound and the way it’s delivered has matured and developed like a fine, potent wine, accentuating Barry and Carl’s personal but sometimes surreal lyrics, which are another story in themselves; their own brand of narrative, crafted so that every syllable packs a wallop, whether humorous, poignant or biting, recalling anyone from Julian Cope to the Alabama 3.
If 2007’s Glory Bumps harked back to the noisy anthems, brass and guitars of 1985’s Oil & Gold, the new album’s is awash with luscious, often lascivious, wry, widescreen slowies; sometimes reaching back to folk music forms or film noir soundtracks.. Despite the increased quotient of subtle textures and atmospheric embellishments, Barry still knows how to deliver a knockout hook, as on the glorious ‘Loving Up The Thing’, which could wreak similar havoc on more discerning modern dance floors as their ‘My Spine is The Bassline’ did in the early 80s.
‘Nowhere, Nothing, Never’, Carl’s ‘Flowers Of Angst’ and ribald sea-shanty style ‘Now I Wanna Go Home’ continue in the upbeat fashion but, if anything, it’s on those slower outings where the surprises and most gripping moments occur; the lustrous widescreen backdrop of ‘Another Day Above The Ground’, dreamy soft-focus orchestrations of ‘In The Dreamlife Of Dogs’, bells-twinkling lullaby of ‘Simpler Machines’ and harmonium beauty of ‘Pointless Rivers’ [further bolstered by Kat Evans’ violin) and the chunky swamp-like ‘Semi-delicious’ which maybe boasts the album’s best lyric in lines like, ‘’you just can’t look away when the dirty doggers do it in the car park lights’. As on every Shriekback album since 1986, Wendy Partridge provides extra-dimensional harmony vocals.
Shriekback retain a controlled power which is doubly effective when they let fly, as on the swaggering ‘Running With The Mothmen’, which rides a drunken groove, splattered with co-producer Stuart Rowe’s slashing guitar shards and Barry’s decidedly misbehaving keyboards. ‘Flowers Of Angst’ throws big guitar shapes and industrial clanks against its slinky groove. Then there are the typically Shriekbackian hybrid mashups, which can present tracks such as ‘Make it Mauve’ as a kind of Caribbean gospel shuffle with mass chorus [yet somehow manage to sound quite demented].
Life in this particular loading bay sounds like a riot of incoming originality, incisive observations and mass musical mischief, sounding like Shriekback have another new trajectory to explore; more like living on a launch-pad.


over the past 23 years, shriekback have managed to hack their own unique trail through the sonic swamp... never bothering to check in at the counter of convention, the band, originally
formed of refugees from xtc and gang of four, have led us through the curious mix of organics and mechanics that was care, the clinical funk
of jam science, the machine-free beauty of
big night music and many other matchless works... and they have always sounded fresh and
confident in comparison with any number of
their contemporaries...

the glory bumps is a comin'...
and now we’re very proud to announce the arrival of shriekback’s eleventh album, and their second on malicious damage... all sumptuously packaged as normal...

glory bumps is in many ways more recognisably the descendant of their mid-80’s ‘alt-rock’ classic oil and gold than any since... anthems, hooligan choruses, big guitars, brass, a smattering of psychobilly and, as usual, shed-loads of words...

glory bumps has a curious tangential relationship with barry andrews’ and martyn barker’s recent improvised album monstrance, a collaboration with xtc’s andy partridge – glory bumps uses a number of loops created from the monstrance album [‘because they were there’] as well as martyns’ inimitable live drums and real-time guitar contributions from andy... barry co-produces with stuart rowe, who was one of the engineers from monstrance... however there is no doubt that this is a shriekback album 100% – as you will hear… wendy partridge who has sung backing vocals on every shriekback album since 1986 features as does barry’s son finn andrews [of the veils] who lends his intense vocals to the happy-clappy title track...

the album’s title is a reference to the goosebumps experienced by fundamentalist christians ‘when the amount of misery prevalent in the world presages, or so they believe, their abrupt assimilation into the bosom of their lord’ although we suspect that, on the day of the rapture, shriekback will not be amongst them...

personnel
barry andrews: vocals, keyboards...
finn andrews: backing vocals...
martyn barker: drums and percussion...
andy partridge: guitar...
catherine shrubshall: brass and woodwind...
mark the harp: blues harp...
ben smith: trombone... stuart rowe: guitars...
finn wilkinson & mia griffiths: kids choir...
produced by barry andrews & stuart rowe...
mixed & mastered by stuart rowe
full track listing: glory bumps, the bride stripped bare, bittersweet, hooray for everything, amaryllis in the sprawl, squanderer, mahalia, burying the bunny, yarg 7, devils’ onions

glory bumps is released on 4th june 2007 but the t-shirts will be ready in a couple of weeks - check out the malicious shop now...

here's what they said about the last album:
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"Cormorant is both a welcome return to form and a powerful evolution for a band that have never failed to deliver classy, meaningful and toe-tapping music. Hearing some of the combinations produced by this collective at once recall their better moments, while also inventing new forms within their oeuvre. The canon of Shriekback is further fortified by this hefty dose of sonic bliss. With guests Andy Partridge (XTC) and Finn Andrews (The Veils), the band take their sound forward with a nod to the past."
full review at studio m
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"all in all, a wonderful addition to the shriekback catalogue, and one that will hopefully re-energise people into rediscovering this most wonderful of forgotten bands. there is plenty on offer to make you smile, swoon, and even dance a little..."
full review at sonomu
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"A blend of retro, leftfield indie ... with ambient and funk flourishes, Cormorant rarely settles for long before veering in a new musical direction. Whereas ‘Sea Theory’ and ‘Waterbaby’ are relatively conventional tunes, the avant-garde pieces like ‘Huytfi Dbl Plus’ could be another band altogether..."
full review at uk-fusion
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cormorant: md605 £8 + p&p
ronny/sea theory/waterbaby/huytfi dbl plus/
the strongest wind that blows/load the boat/ troublemeat/reason with the beast/
bonehead/voiled karletus/true passage/
il mystera del tempo

and for those of you who want to test the water click on these for a sneaky preview:
ronny
seatheory
waterbaby
bonehead

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buy it here!!