Review Summary: Post-punk psychedelia witch prog destruction
Madonnatron are one of the latest and most blasphemous additions to the South London punk scene. Under the auspice of Thrashmouth records, their fierce debut is a scorching revision of feminist tropes, witchcraft and all kinds of mischievous post-punk psychedelia. Zsa Zsa Sapiens of brother band Meat Raffle describes them with the following statement on their bandcamp page:
"If Madonnatron was an amplifier, it would be a mutha of a Krell beater, a class A with plenty of power in reserve. Better than Led Zeppelin", while Lias Saoudi from Fat White Family has referred to their early gigs as something like
"listening to a kitchen falling apart in an earthquake".
The truth is, when the band was approached by their record label for laying down the plans of a radiant debut, they seem to have replied in all honesty that "none of them could actually play their instruments", and fair enough, the bonus track "Situations" might be a good testimony of this modest reality but I gotta say, the rest of
Madonnatron, on the contrary, is exactly what it needs to be: a wonderful mess.
I jumped on
Madonnatron with these excellent references in mind, so disappointment was, obviously, not an option. The laser beam shooting Virgin Mary's debut is raw and rabid when it's pissed off while dramatically unsettling when it wants to get intimate.
The album kicks off with a merry tune about drowning babies called "Headless Children", followed with the album highlight "Sangue Neuf". It is fairly clear at this point that the band don't have any intention to surprise you with a Mastodon solo, instead, they opt for using their irresistible charm to crawl into your candid ears, with the gloomy "Tron" being a solid example of the trip ahead.
Madonnatron don't hold back on using harmonic howls, piercing guitars and inalterable tempo to carry the album through the middle part like old hags riding a stoned gator through a swamp. Soon enough, things start to get really weird with "Glenn Closer", a slithering track about a horribly fixated groupie. The codeine coated singing is so soothing and hypnotizing, that at this point I already forgot about 3.5s and whatever, and I am just a flailed soul in some sort of sordid bachannal, adoring Lucifer and chasing goats with this wicked coven. After some sitar, some demonic ritual chants and some of your every day, general celebration of the antichrist, the beats catch up again starting with an exceptionally calamitous drum fill that introduces "Mother's Funeral", a post-punk jewel that has no option but to burn quick in order to give in to that old devil we know as the blues, in this case portrayed by the rambling "Bad Woman" and the devious swing of "Wedding Song", probably the track in which the collective singing of Madonnatron shines the brightest, reminiscent of, I would dare to say, established diva Florence and The Machine.
Time goes fast during good times and Madonnatron wrap things up with the sweet ethereal melodies of "Cat Lady", ceasing an album that surely won't please Joe Satriani's fans but that will definitely keep warm company in nights of drunken destruction, burning of churches and pagan orgies in the name of Satan.
