Loose Grip – Cereal 7” EP (Bedroom Suck)
RECOMMENDED
I’ve listened to this one a few times (it’s great) and sat down to write this, and just then I get an IM asking if I’d heard anything about Brendon Annesley, the editor of Negative Guest List and proprietor of the label of the same name, that he had passed. He may not have had anything to do with Loose Grip’s debut single, but seeing as they’re an Australian band he had something to say about them, which you can find in Bedroom Suck’s description of this single. My thoughts go out to everyone affected by this loss; I did not interact with him much but he was by all accounts an ambitious, outspoken, highly expressive and talented young man with a wit sharp enough to grind keys, and a good portion of the excellent music that’s come out of Australia in the past few years got greater notice by the work he did. It wouldn’t be fair to Loose Grip to gloss over their record, which is substantial and fun in the ways that most punk and HC records to pass this way really aren’t anymore. Its five songs are rambunctious, fast, sloppy in the right places but tight where it needs to be (the staccato bursts of drumming/strumming on the title track, presumably about enjoying a bowl of breakfast cereal after a bowl of something else, as referenced on the previous track, “Baked”), and in a time when the world is falling apart, they don’t seem to be concerned with anything, outside the scope of what’s depicted here, a concept single about wake and bake, followed by some breakfast, a pernicious locked groove, a trip to McDonald’s, and a track called “Wipe the Slate” to begin it all over again the next day. Some of the riffage gets a bit poppy but the vocals of one Kieren Lavering push this into freakshow territory, barking mad and probably smiling the whole time. Biting tone and crazy aggression remind me of early Red Cross and Dr. Know; perhaps we’ve found a Southern Hemisphere tribute to ‘Nardcore. Joe Alexander jumps in on drums, as he has with the excellent Kitchen’s Floor and Per Purpose; he’s another one of the people who’s keeping all the wheels greased in his country’s musical footprint, and with the loss of Mr. Annesley, he and others are going to have to put in overtime to fill the void he’s left. Hang in there, buds. I’ve been there. It’s gonna be a hard time. Be strong. (http://www.bedroomsuckrecords.com)
(Doug Mosurock)
