The world was a very different place when Terminal Cheesecake folded in 1995, their wilfully Dadaist approach to their craft, fighting against the tide of po-faced late grunge and Britpop bravado, attracting a few fried minds along the way.
Nowadays, though, the absurd reigns – Brexit, Trump, fucking cereal cafés! – and three years on from their reactivation a new album seems absurdly un-absurd. Unlike last year’s live LP, Cheese Brain Fondue, however, Dandelion… is not quite the TC you’d remember. On the lineup front, former Gnod collaborator Neil Francis is now handling ‘vocals’ and Head Of David’s Dave Cochrane is on bass. The driving, pulsating and Gnod-ish chamber of noise that is opener Birds In 6⁄8 echoes the darkness of moments of 1990’s Angels In Pigtails while the stoner-y, slacker groove of Poultice recalls the less dub-heavy moments of 1994 swansong LP King Of All Spaceheads – yet there’s now a dark clarity that lurks in between and behind every note and noise, particularly amongst the noise/throb cacophony of The Winding Path. Serious, crazy, and now seriously crazy to boot.
