Right from the opening salvo and title track, it is obvious that listening to this new album from Inca Babies is going to be a wonderful and unique experience. The slow, sultry swagger, the attitude that just drips from each bluesy twang, each sonic shard and guitar cascade, each melancholic trumpet blast, each spacious beat. It is dark, demonic and delicious and this is just the first track of many. To be honest, Inca Babies could have stopped there and I would still feel that value for money had been achieved. Thankfully they don’t.
And if the familiar sounds of the singles, the scuzzy and raw-edged Crawling Garage Gasoline and the Lou Reed-esque Walk In The Park are here to help ease us in, they also underline the fact that this is an album of pure killer, no filler…as I believe the kids say…and the band could have picked any song at random and sent it out into the world with equally rewarding results.
Bigger Than All of Us is a thumping, incendiary blues maelstrom of the kind rarely seen since The Jim Jones Revue delivered their last hurrah, Windshield Gnat is slow, sensual and strange…all great qualities in a song…Dear English Journalists struts along with the utmost confidence and contempt for its subject and Swamp Soul Dub reimagines the opener by taking a dive into deep, dark, dub sonic waters.
The line-up may have changed over the years but Harry Stafford still knows how to captain his unique musical ship, one that he steers deftly through all manner of bluesy blends, punk panache, gothic grooves and a few other genres that don’t have an obvious alliterative handle. If the singles hinted at a great album to come, even they didn’t suggest just how brilliant it was going to be.
[…] getting a second bite of the cherry and the band headlining at Aatma tomorrow, with the awesome Inca Babies no less, it is time for you to play catch up and get on board with this most excellent […]