TV Priest - Uppers

If some people’s influence only truly shines once they’ve left this mortal coil, then since Mark E Smith departed in 2017, the sheer volume of bands indebted to his speak-sing, sardonic ranting has skyrocketed. Joining the crew come TV Priest, and while in isolation (not that kind of isolation…) the sneering, society-shunning post-punk of tracks like ‘Decoration’ and the motorik, aptly-titled ‘Journey of a Plague Year’ are full of conviction, the fact remains you could probably hum a fair approximation of ‘Uppers’ without actually listening to it. Jumping into a saturated scene or simply victims of timing, TV Priest’s debut is good but not necessarily enough to poke through the maelstrom quite yet.