Screaming Maldini - And The Kookaburra

If the purpose of a debut is to showcase every musical skill and inch of potential your band has, then Screaming Maldini has nailed it. The five-track EP unapologetically grabs you by the balls with all the force it can muster, meaning like it or not, you have to listen up. But it kind of works.

This eccentric cacophony is entirely over the top but like the youthful exuberance that radiates from these three students, it’s contagious. The chaos and vivacious instrumentation on tracks like ‘Secret Sounds’ and ‘I Know That You Know That I Would Wipe the Snowflake from Your Eye’ are so intruding they are almost obnoxious. Yet the infectious enthusiasm seems to shake your very bones, juddering out any cynicism towards this sunshine mentalism.

But as you’d expect, the band do get it wrong. ‘Albatross’ shoves the band from eccentric electro pop to Disney-esque drivel which sounds like Sophie Ellis Bextor sat on a trumpet recorded for our very own displeasure. The intensity of each track also means that as most songs plough on through to four minutes in length, the blood starts to drain from your head. Screaming Maldini does manage to bring things back on track and the EP to a close with typically theatrical ‘Miniature’; blasting out more instrumentation than a big band on acid.

Whilst by the end of twenty minutes with Screaming Maldini, you may feel the urge to plunge your head into a bucket of cold water; their overtly dramatic style is not their downfall. In fact these are the very same qualities that have thrust bands like Yeasayer to the forefront already this year. But what separates Screaming Maldini from the afore mentioned is that the busyness of their tracks make the eccentricity seem more forced than organic. Perhaps with a bit of a production tidy up and a deep breath so as to stop working their tracks so hard, the band’s brashness and the musical abilities the EP showcases could work better.