by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
England’s Wrong Speed Records, the label run by Joe Thompson (Hey Colossus), is doing their part in keeping music interesting. As a record label they shift between avant-garde releases and more traditional noise punk, indie, and punk albums, wasting no time in building a catalog that includes Sweet Williams, Part Chimp, Reigns, and The Rebel among others. Their latest addition is the debut from Glasgow’s The Web of Lies, a duo comprised of Neil Robinson (Buffet Lunch) and Edwin Stevens (Irma Vep). Set to release Nude With Demon this Friday, February 25th, the pair have created a brilliant album of hard pressed psych, vast droning repetition, and vocals that are often loosely doubled. There’s a dense and sour quality to it, with one foot in noise rock and another in jangle pop, the mix of which is both radiantly hypnotic and sludgy.
Having introduced themselves to the world with lead single “Receiver” (and instantly selling out all the label’s copies of the vinyl), we were instantly hooked from the sheer power, primal distortion, and relative breeze of the vocals. It’s a masterful opening statement to a record that retains a similar dynamic throughout, but with plenty of dynamic turns. Songs get slower and heavier. Songs get more agitated and raw. There’s noise, there’s krautrock, and everything they do works with their hazy bad-trip formula. “RnR Resurrection” is the band’s second single, joined once again by Kathryn Gray (Nape Neck) on vocals. The song opens with sour bass thuds and a wonderful drum pattern that feels like it’s falling down a flight of stairs. The guitars come swarming in like the tide, leaving a trail of scuzz in its wake, as Gray and Stevens offer a slightly detached vocal that sits in the shadows of the mix. They build on the motorik beat as the guitars truly envelope it all before concluding just as they began.
The video, likely a play on the track’s title, features what might be the worst aspect of rock fandom… people in mosh pits at festivals. It doesn’t paint a good picture for the “resurrection” but I suppose there’s a hypnotic quality to its general mindlessness paired perfectly with the lyrics that involve “holes in my brain”. An early favorite of 2022, The Web of Lies sound locked in and focused on making out of focus music.