Few bands have ever planed against the grain with quite as much audacity and demented glee as Stump.
Imbued with the subversive spirit of Captain Beefheart, and with an unprecedented, wilfully perverse sound, the Anglo-Irish quartet lurched, wobbled and painted unhinged sonic pictures for five glorious years in the 80s, just as indie rock was disappearing up its own twee fundament. Does The Fish Have Chips comprises the band’s Mud On A Colon EP, Quirk Out mini-album, one gloriously chaotic session for the John Peel show and a grotesque smattering of rare and unreleased tracks. It all adds to the sense that Stump were a wonderfully awkward one-off with wit and invention oozing from every pore. Their best known song, Buffalo, is here, complete with the demented refrain that gives this retrospective its title, but there was much more to these mad-eyed mavericks than that. From the mischievous smut of Tupperware Stripper to the shimmering sentimentality of Our Fathers, from Bit Part Actor’s frenzied clangour to frothy-lipped nursery rhyme rumble of The Queen And The Pope, this is a perfect introduction to their deviance.
