Four years on from their final release and apparent disintegration, one of the UK’s most brilliant but underrated bands are back to mess with our heads.
Down I Go’s trademark swivel-eyed amalgam of lurching, dissonant hardcore, quirky strings and brass and insidious, out-of-focus melodies was always too smart and sassy to connect with the generic rock populace, but from the opening clatter of Mother In The Pen to the wonky thump of The Sending, they remain a band with bounteous charm and millions of deranged but compelling ideas.
There’s something laudably mischievous about the way these songs switch moods, from elegant pathos expressed through psychedelic mazes of melody to jaw-cracking, angular riffing and wild, syncopated rhythms that twitch like a lunatic’s eyeball.
The twists and turns that define the frantic Strike It While It’s Still On My Nose would be jarring in less skilled hands, but like everything else here, Down I Go pull it off because playing music this exciting, untamed and original is simply what they do.
