The James Cleaver Quintet  - Ten stages of a Make Up EP

Words such as ‘frenzied,’ ‘abrasive,’ ‘relentless’ and perhaps even ‘fucking insane’ are doled out by the alternative music press with reckless abandon, and as such lose some of their impact through repetition... but in the case of Eastbourne/Ashford based maniacs The James Cleaver Quintet, you better believe they’re appropriate. On debut EP ‘Ten Stages of a Make Up’ the cunningly named four piece take a chainsaw to such foolish notions as restraint and artistic pretension, the deranged garage punk meets grindcore assault of ‘I Do, You Do, We Do Voodoo’ and off kilter catchiness of ‘Pinks and Blues’ ensuring that while this would never make Mary Whitehouse’s top five EPs of the last few months, it might just make yours. The part indie, part punk, all chaos quartet manage to shoehorn a dose of warped melody into the waves of amp splitting guitar, unpredictable time signatures and seasick riffs somehow not hampering their ability to lodge their tunes somewhere within your frontal lobe for the foreseeable, final track ‘Coming of Age’ a seeming collision between countless elements of the band’s sound (rounded off by a jarring dose of distortion that’s guaranteed to make 90% of those listening on headphones squirm) that actually manages to become far more than a simply a stylistic mess. Highly recommended for those willing to experiment, those willing to risk life and limb in search of a good time and, well, those who just like freaky shit. Awesome.