Destroyed by Madness

BLOB HALFORD BIRTHDAY PARTY Blob Halford / 77 Spears / Mr Thank You / The Dirty Looks The Grafton Arms, Manchester 23/03/24 Grey skies open and rain pelts the concrete playground of Manchester; the scent of wet streets and the urban white noise offer a familiar sensory delight whilst floating down Oxford Road on my way to catch the World’s Greatest MF’n Rock & Roll Band celebrate their birthday with a hot night in the weird and wonderful world of the DIY underground. Opening the show with gothic charm and detached cool, newcomers The Dirty Looks filter the artsy side of UK punk through a distinctive Greenwich Village lens. Carnivalesque keys swirl amidst proto-punk guitars and a hyperactive rhythm section, setting the tone for Gracie Vaux and her literate tales of nocturnal wanderings. Dramatic ballads and slashing romps are natural bedfellows in this gang’s theatre of the strange. Keep a lookout for The Dirty Looks. Mr Thank You follow, all keen angles and taut rhythms that loosen...

BEN FARRINGTON Stay Underground EP (Self-release 15/03/24) Doom  fuelled death-folk is the order of the day across a trio of self-lacerating and literate paens to living inside one’s own head. An ascending arpeggio propels the semi-eponymous opener, ‘Should’ve Stayed Underground’. It’s an acerbic and frustrated confession of subscribing to the metronomic, mirrored, and mechanical nature of modern life. The struggle of meeting perceived expectations and ‘reaching your potential’ are questioned and quizzed, but an understanding of what defines a balance between these and our authentic desires remains tantalisingly out of reach. Structurally uplifting whilst downbeat in tone, the song pushes ahead of its natural tempo for the vast majority, a hidden sequitur of the inherent anxiety. Yet, for some reason, there’s an acceptance and optimism in the final strums and exhale of breath. ‘Success’ follows, mired in lyrical self-doubt whilst pilfering jaunty rhythms and melancholic chord progr...