Review Summary: Post-rock on caffeine,
You Slut! are obviously a band that don’t take themselves too seriously. The band name itself is enough to tell you this, as are the similarly daft song titles on their 2007 debut, ‘Critical Meat’ – in particular, ‘Pie To The Death-Faced Indie Kid’. Therefore, it follows that their music is not too
serious, or to put it more accurately, introspective. Indeed, the Derby/Nottingham, UK quartet peddle a fun, quirky brand of post-rock and math-rock comparable to fellow Brits Maybeshewill, and to a lesser extent, 65daysofstatic. Currently holed up, writing the follow up to this, their debut (mini-)album, You Slut! exhibit a great deal of potential on ‘Critical Meat’.
The album starts out energetically with
‘Cut And Shut By You Slut!’’s spiralling guitar riffs seemingly vaulting all over the place as a lively rhythm section holds it all together. This energy is maintained throughout much of the album and so makes for a very entertaining, dare I say it,
fun listen. The tracks on ‘Critical Meat’ are often playful in their nature, twisting and turning all over the place with rapid guitar riffs, driving bass lines and the drums perfectly complimenting the sonic mayhem. All of these components, plus some post-rock-on-caffeine-esque, soaring riffs are present in
‘Roofio Shoots, Roofio Scores’, making it one of the best tracks on the album. Better yet is the more restrained (‘restrained’ being used very lightly)
‘Pie To The Death-Faced Indie Kid’ which furiously alternates between thick and thin textures with a call-and-response like pattern swaggering its way through the track.
The only argument you could really level at You Slut! is that it is often hard to distinguish between tracks. This is mainly because the tracks race along at such a fast pace that they almost seem to blur into one another. However, this fast pace is also a good thing because when you consider that the band are leaping from one time signature to another with gleeful abandon at THIS SPEED it is nothing short of extraordinary.
From start to finish ‘Critical Meat’ is an attack on the senses – in a very enjoyable way. Throughout its 24:08 running time you are bombarded with angular riff after angular riff and rhythmical hook after rhythmical hook. This is only the band’s debut and yet they already seem like seasoned pros – such is the ease with which they create brilliantly energetic math-rock. Currently holed up, writing the follow up to this, their debut (mini-)album, You Slut! exhibit a great deal of potential on ‘Critical Meat’, and if this is anything to go by, it’ll be fan-***ing-tastic.
