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CD ReviewAdvent Sleep – “No More You”By JHR
Given that the first version of the title track features a wedge of hammering that sounds like the Terminator soundtrack and another lump of synth bass that's best mates with Love Missile F1-11, the overall impression is that one or more of the T-whatever robots formed a band with the reanimated zombie corpses of ex-members of Sigue Sigue Sputnik and recorded this entire EP very loudly at the far end of a mile-deep pit. The second mix appears to be in some debt to Maz Manson, the third (I'm told – I couldn't whistle you one of his songs if forced at gunpoint) owes something to NIN. This isn't an entirely bad thing; there's a prominent keyboard line that writhes about like a very broken conveyor belt in a pleasingly sinuous manner. And why not? Sneaky phase on the percussion, too. Or it came off a dying C90, which is probably even better. As regards the lyrical content, I have no idea, which is probably a good thing. It may or may not be about some woman that's done our hero wrong (in the usual blues style) and then died unexpectedly. So he goes and digs up the remains and wears her entrails as a hat. Or something. Could be about contract bridge, too. One Kiss lurches between clomping metal, Let's Go All the Way by Sly Fox and the 14th Arrondissement of Paris. Then there's a cover version. This one's of Tainted Love. Y'see, the thing is about covers is that they're often a bit pointless unless they pull the original song to bits and put it back together in the wrong order with limbs, doors and cogs all sticking out at curious angles. The canonical cover is by Soft Cell; they took a storming Northern Soul tune (by Gloria Jones) and mutated it into some bedroom-sleaze thing that absolutely fitted the mood of the time. I recall being utterly confused that two blokes in makeup and a couple of synths could make such a remarkable noise. A few years after that, I fell in with a couple of Northern fans who played me the original. An equally splendid event. Anyway. Were one going to perpetrate a cover of Tainted Love these days, it would have to be either some epic euro-trance monstrosity or some mad grime thing that sampled concrete and the spaces between car alarms. Look at that. I resisted the temptation to make 'advent calendar' refer... Oh. Bugger! Contact Information: Click to Buy!
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Due to the utter ineptitude
of the international postal service (again), this EP turned up on my virtual
doorstep as a collection of MP3s and a JPG of the cover art. Even so, I spent a
couple of seconds peering at the BSD box (short and unfortunate technical story
of little interest) that functions as music player, wondering if it were
possible for MP3s to play at 33 RPM when they should be going at 45. However,
such unintentional Peelisms were not the problem; Mr Advent has a startlingly
deep voice. I'm not sure if it's down to him having a throat the diameter of a
gas-main or clever studio malarkey, but it's...unsettling. 
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