S.C.U.M. - Amber Hands

I wouldn’t usually assume so speedily, but a band who christened themselves with the acronym S.C.U.M. (‘Society for Cutting Up Men’) surely aren’t going to have an air of gloom about them, are they? Having prowled London’s darker stretches for a few years now, their bleary, vortex-spiralling newbie ‘Amber Hands’ certainly suggests otherwise.

On our first foretaste of their debut album, we hear them partake in a ludicrously huge, stadium-sized attack. Walls of sound come coruscating up and out of my speakers, tranquillising the surrounding air, piercing my eardrums and entangling my auditory system. I have instinctual feelings of awe.

Backed by an incessant beat, excessive amounts of reverb and feedback subsequently obliterate everything they encounter. The band seem lost and confounded, but so do we, so it’s no matter. Present are a vigour and raucousness reminiscent of bands like Six. By Seven and The Jesus & Mary Chain. It seems as though the dirty spirit of these near-defunct groups shall live on for a good few years yet - and if this is going to be via distortion deluged quagmires dreamt up by youthful apers like S.C.U.M., then I for one am thrilled.