Edgy, divergent UK alt-rock has been a little buried of late in this lark we call independent music. It’s all femme-pop this and vacuous electro-clatter that. But proving to be no mousy Afrofunk-infused try-hards, marvellously named Sarf Londoners Antlered Man are rowing against the wet fish wimp-pop tide with white-knuckled determination.
This debut 10-track whips up a perfect storm with references to Mike Patton, Dead Kennedys, Melvins, Cardiacs and McLusky – to name but a few – as the five-piece shape an enjoyably orchestrated canoe-wreck.
Time and time again AM’s punk rock‘n’pub circuit-honed hooks rise from the deep in a venomous display of Van der Graaf (Platoono Of Uno), Scaramanga Six (Better The Calamity You Know) and No Means No (Misruly Roo). Synapse-socking twists, crafty lyricism (care of deceptively mannered polemical frontman Danny Fury) – why there’s even a flute in here somewhere (Buddhist Soup).
The future of new noise is in safe hands.