No Photoshop - Matt's hands really do look like that. He should probably get that checked out.
Fortunately, The Fierce And The Dead live up to only the first half of their name. The fiercely capable quartet of Matt Stevens and Steve Cleaton on guitar, Kev Feazey on bass and Stuart Marshall on drums first exploded onto the scene in 2011 with If It Carries On Like This We Are Moving To Morecambe. We at BEM liked this album so much that we released a remastered version late last year - do give it a listen if you haven't already.
But we're not here to talk about that album, not today. No, we're here, in the spirit of the season (what do you mean, Halloween's gone?), to get spooky.
Spooky Action was released in November 2013,
Following on from Morecambe's 'Part 1' and 'Part 2', and the On VHS EP's 'Part 3', Spooky Action opens, as you might expect, with 'Part 4'. This was the first I ever heard of TFATD... and what an introduction it was.
The moment the Big Riff kicked in, I knew I'd be listening to this album a lot over the coming months - and, as it turned out, years. There's just something about the way these guys assemble their songs, with the twin guitars playing off each other and the steady, forceful beat, that makes them extremely earwormy. I'd probably be singing most of Spooky Action to myself constantly if there were any lyrics, but, in their absence, I tend to find myself humming along instead.
TFATD are often classified as post-rock, math-rock, or something similar, but I think this does them a disservice - even just on this album, there's a lot of diversity of sound, from the ominous, bass-heavy crunch of 'Pyramid Hat' to the surprisingly brief proggy excess of 'Entropy'. A standout track for me is 'Let's Start A Cult', known during production as 'Duck Street' because of the weird honks at the start. Take it apart and it's composed of a few fairly straightforward building blocks (well, until it gets to the climax), but put it back together and it never sounds simple or monotonous.
Spooky Action was widely and pretty positively reviewed. It comes "highly recommended" by Jason Ritchie of getreadytorock, PROG Magazine's Malcolm Dome calls it "an album that gives you a glow", and Jester Jay Goldman at Spectrum Culture says it's a "bracing tonic" even in a saturated post-rock scene. Progarchy, too, noted that the album "reaches the depth and richness it reaches precisely because it does not take itself too seriously", and I'm inclined to agree. This is a complex, technically superb album, but it's got heart too, and it's that little injection of tongue-in-cheek verve that pushes the tunes one step above good.
This is to say nothing of what The Fierce And The Dead are like live. They've been playing a lot of gigs this year, including a standout set at RoSFest where they did their job of waking everyone up, as the first act on the Sunday, with charismatic panache. (Word on the street is that this set was recorded, both audio and video. Interesting.) I myself got to see them at the Borderline recently, and it was one of the best gigs I've seen in a very long time indeed.
And, as it happens, you, too, can catch them live next week! They're supporting American metal outfit Big Business at the Underworld on Wednesday night. For more details and tickets, check the event page. Failing that, their live mini-album Field Recordings should give you a taste of the TFATD live experience, and is available right now.
What of Spooky Action? Well, since it's a little older now, you can grab a copy for the reduced price of £5 physical or £2 digital right here. I consider this a seminal piece of label history, and if you don't already own a copy, do yourself a favour and rectify that. You won't regret it, I promise.
And keep your eyes on the skies. Next year is Spooky Action's fifth birthday, as well as BEM's, and you can expect album number three before 2018's even halfway done...
Status Update
Charlie Cawood's The Divine Abstract is out now and on its way to your ears - or, if it isn't yet, you can make it so at the webstore.
Other than that, November is set to be a pretty quiet month for us release-wise, but you can still look forward to a couple of approaching live shows, Prog for Peace next weekend and Masquerade 2 at the top of December - more information and tickets behind the links.
Murder and Parliament, Tom Slatter's new instrumental project, will be our last release of 2017, and you can expect preorders for that very soon.
Review Roundup
Can you round up one review? We're damn well going to try. Progressive Music Planet published their review of The Divine Abstract at the start of the week, and Susan, better known as madvinyl, gave it a rare and impressive perfect 10 review. It quite literally doesn't get better than that.
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