The Experimental Pop Band - 'Tarmac & Flames' (Cooking Vinyl)
3/5
By: Matt Tomiak
Being called The Experimental Pop Band can put you in a testing predicament - are they really that different to anyone else? Luckily enough, yes, they are different to everyone else. But is that a good thing..?
If you call yourselves 'The Experimental Pop Band', release records on the Cooking Vinyl label and have an album in your back-catalogue entitled 'Disgrotesque', you can well expect to be pigeon-holed as 'quirky'.
But, as you might anticipate, it's not quite as simple as all that. For many years, Bristolian Davey Woodward has been making music under a variety of guises. And the fourth, full album under his 'Experimental Pop Band' moniker could hardly be accused of lacking scope; heck, there's commentary on social alienation, sex, racism, and casual violence within the first ten minutes alone, and throughout 'Tarmac and Flames', classic pop resides intermittently alongside thudding abrasion.
And Woodward is undoubtedly both a giftedly versatile vocalist (you'd be forgiven for believing 'Gothenburg' was an outtake from Blur's 'Think Tank'), as well as a talented songwriter, ensuring a consistently interesting record, the album's heterogeneous approach continuing throughout its self-designated 'side two'; 'Can't Stand It' positions an 'Exterminator'-era Primal Scream backdrop behind lyrics depicting the appalling communal consequences of tee-totalism.
Of course, the dramatic-tone shifts continue, so that 'Crow Ventura' sees Woodward indulge in a lascivious Jarvis Cocker-esque monologue, dead-panning his way through the various sordid details of youthful romance ('My hand barely got between her legs/When my lip was split open by a first class punch'). To close proceedings, we're back in a more conventional place, with 'Accident' serving as a suitably stark, poignant way to wrap things up. Even though you're still left sitting none the wiser about the whole business.
Artists in this article: The Experimental Pop Band
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