By Jim Rowland
With members hailing from the ÜK, Latvia, Germany, Sardinia and Greece, London-based acid punks Bad Fractals’ debut album ‘The Sea Sang Screaming’ is every bit unusual and eclectic as that combination of band members.
Beginning back in 2012, Bad Fractals has never been a band to do things the conventional way, playing shows in squats, raves, strip clubs and even on the occasional flatbed truck. The ten tracks on this album could certainly be described as unconventional too. Produced and mixed by Youth (Killing Joke) and Michael Rendall this debut album ‘The Sea Sang Screaming’ has been a long time coming and is finally ready to be released via Creation Youth, the label launched by Youth and Creation Records legend Alan McGee.
Pigeonholing Bad Fractals’ sound is not an easy task, fusing elements of everything from punk and rock to art-rock and prog and a fair few places in between, it makes for a bizarre but utterly captivating listen.
The likes of ‘Bee Sting’, ‘Disco Devils’ and the hard-hitting ‘Taxman’ manage to mix twisted, angular art rock with prog and punk all under the same roof, ‘What You Looking At?’ fuses Cramps-style rockabilly with gobby street punk, whilst ‘Chemical Weddings’ and the soaring acid rock of ‘Walk of Shame’ have a dark and slightly disturbing air to them. There’s drama and theatricality throughout too.
At various points, the spirit of bands like The Tubes, Cardiacs, Big Elf and Primus springs to mind for me, without sounding directly like any of them in particular. What those bands do have in common is clever, inventive eccentricity and a unique quality, and Bad Fractals has that in abundance.
- ‘The Sea Sang Screaming‘ will be released tomorrow (Friday 15 May).
