Swanton Bombs Mumbo Jumbo and Murder (Turnstile)
3/5
By: Stephen Maughan
If the thought of listening to 12 throbbing, loud and somewhat repetitive songs from a pair of professional wrestling fans, with very little in the way of polished production alarms you... and if you're bothered about what exactly the difference is between, say track 4 ('Crowbar') and track 10 ('Fear, There, And Everywhere')... or what the songs are actually trying to say... then Mumbo Jumbo and Murder is not for you. We are not talking about the next Radiohead here.
Shall we just have a moment of peace, let those party-poopers go, stock up on beer and let the party begin? For Mumbo Jumbo and Murder is in fact a rather good album, about as raw as you can get without having these two play directly in your living room, but who cares about production and lo-fi aesthetics when you can play the guitar like this? There are some cracking riffs and a touch of Rolling Stones cockiness to Swanton Bombs that warms your heart. Lyrically it can be a bit of a muddle to truly understand what is being said, but with occasional lines like “The story's straight, I spilt the wine” being spoken/yelled atop the overbearing clutter of guitars and drums, the whole thing is actually rather impressive.
Mumbo Jumbo and Murder explodes before flaming away with a quite romantic song at the end, 'Tanks' (“Get your tanks off my lawn!”) which edges on becoming – dare I write it – a punk rockers' ballet of a broken love affair, until the guitars pick up speed again and before you know it we are back at the beginning of the album once more.
You may have read something about how Swanton Bombs are the London version of Vampire Weekend, which while on the basis of this may seem quite a stretch, might have some truth to it after all. There's something about this band that gets your attention, and it's not the excessive use of guitar, or the Stooges influences, it's more about the possibility of things to come. Swanton Bombs exude a great deal of promise - quite a rare thing among new bands these days. Mumbo Jumbo, indeed.
Artists in this article: Swanton Bombs
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