By Jim Rowland
Imperial Wax, the band featuring former members of the last and longest serving line up of The Fall before the untimely death of the legendary Mark E Smith, return with their second album ‘Tranquilliser’, through the band’s own label, Guesswork Records.
Taking their name from The Fall’s 2008 album ‘Imperial Wax Solvent’ on which they appeared, the members of Imperial Wax have also featured on Fall nuggets like ‘Your Future Our Clutter’, ‘Ersatz GB’, ‘Sub-Lingual Tablet’ and the very last album ‘New Facts Emerge’. Whilst incorporating elements of that latter day version of The Fall, Imperial Wax’s fusion of garage rock, punk and post-punk takes on a life of its own in the post-Fall here and now.
For the most part, ‘Tranquilliser’ is full of up-tempo, spikey, angular slices of post-punk oozing plenty of power and catchy riffing, as exemplified on tracks like ‘Less I Need’, ‘No Control’, ‘Tranquilliser’, ‘Post Lobotomy’ and the excellent and very powerful album closer ‘Under Your Wings’. ‘Midas Touch’ is a super-speedy chunk of punk rock, ‘Burning In the Water’ heads in a more psyche-rock direction, with ‘Through My Hands’ dropping the tempo for a more bluesy approach.
Vocalist Sam Curren, formerly of Leeds based punk band Black Pudding, gives the band a punk rock edge with a vocal delivery that in places reminds me a bit of Charlie Harper, which works well with much of the more twisted, post-punk style of the music.
All in all, ‘Tranquilliser’ is a raw, intense, powerful and very decent album.
- ‘Tranquilliser‘ is released on Friday (9 February).
