A particularily
interesting piece of musical mania from Weymouth,
Freak Circus come with inbuilt quality control
because they are on the Pink Hedgehog label. OK, so
we're interested now, so what are The Freaks about? A
gigging apprenticeship including stints at Lennon's
Bar and The Cavern Club in Liverpool have polished a
collection of tunes shiny enough to appear on record.
Freak Shall Inherit The Earth is a new-wave,
pop-punk inspired fuzz-fest with plenty of
intelligence and wry wit. Observational humour set to
a catchy, fuzzed-up backbeat with the idiosyncrasy of
Wire or The Cooper Temple Cause. The sheer energy of
'Chemistry' or the rocked-out constricted sound of
'Troubling Trainspotters For Loose Change'. The joy
of this album is that there are 13 tracks on here,a
freaked-out fuzzbox of delights that'll sit well with
your BRMC and Pavement records very well indeed. Love
it to bits.
Reviewed in Fuse, UK
...where you'll find Freak
Shall Inherit The Earth, the first album for the
label from stalwarts of the South Coast gig circuit,
Freak Circus. The press release accompanying this
album rather flatteringly includes quotes I've
written about the band in the past - but the best
part is listening to the album and being reassured
that I was right about them all along. They really DO
sound as though they absorbed all the best music from
punk's first wave then went surfing with it in the
cosmos. The trash aesthetic which informs the likes
of 'Sex Vampire' - all one minute and 57 seconds of
it - is alchemised into diamonds in the hands of The
Freaks. And speaking as we just were of hit singles
in waiting, the punk/pop perfection of 'My Lullaby'
and 'It Took Some Time' provides ample proof that
there's real substance underpinning the band's
irreverent stance.
Reviewed in Dorset Echo by Marco Rossi, UK