MASS CONSENSUS-Going Postal CD-EP

Dundee band's debut reveals a wealth of ideas in the space of just three tracks and brings us one of the freshest new faces on the scene in the process. The opener and title track is an extraordinary piece as this giant lumbering, lurching beast of a track reminds you of bands as diverse as Was Not Was, Urban Dance Squad, Frank Zappa, Faust and many an early seventies pyschedelic band as it starts with twangs of sitar-like guitar as this giant lurching rhythm comes in from heavily crunching drums, deep bass throb and rhythm guitar undercurrent before the phased vocal intones the verse very much in the manner of Was Not Was, leading into this solid lift-off of a wordless chorus set against a backdrop of crashing cymbals, gigantic drum beats and the distant textures of that twangy guitar/sitar refrain and textural melodic keyboards. This is repeated a few times as the whole piece just takes off and explodes into a myriad elements all held together by that cyclical riff, that awesome drumming and those back-and-forth phased voices all charting your gaze to that sky-high chorus. Towards the end it drops back its intensity for a sizzler of a sustained guitar lead before piling on the rhythmic pressure as the sustain becomes red hot and this guitar break climbs to the heavens before the whole thing lurches back into the main body of the song and abruptly stops, completely taking your breath away in the process. “The Circus” continues the vocal feel and sound only this time on a song with drive and swing as organ and sax are the main leads and the whole thing has the unusual distinction of a musical collision between Colosseum, Zappa and Was Not Was, sort of jazz-rock with a contemporary edge, twisting and turning its way through melody, fusion and drive, that organ running through its veins like lifeblood, the sax giving a jazzy top layer, the rhythms more propulsive and less obtrusive while the treated vocals give us the intoned and sung verses, all of totally uncommercial yet totally addictive, in fact positively spellbinding. Things end with “They Wouldn't Let Me Vote”, where the jazzy elements of the band really come into play as this lurching slice of sax-guitar-led fusion drives and steams into view as the vocalist is now freed from the treatments to surge through a song that is as sardonically funny as anything Zappa may have given us while at the same time mixing jazz complexity with massive melodic sensibility to provide one huge sounding, catchy, driving gem of a track, rarely has modern jazz-laced indie sounded so attractive. All in all, a total breath of fresh air and something you should check out right now.

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