I'm a shallow and rather fickle man. I wouldn't be inclined to navel gaze if I was running a Portsmouth B 'n' B with the Fleet in. So when I get a brand new C.D. in the post I'm going to read as much into the cover as possible. I'm the same with books. Judgey.
I didnt like the cover to Blue Eyed Shark Experiment's debut album "The Fluffer". It's a blue-bleached photo of a woman looking rather like an Estee Lauder advert that's been in the chemist's window for too long. I didn't care for the band's name (it's not a band! He's messing with you! It's just one guy!) and I didnt much like the look of Mr. Blue-Eyed Shark either - a hoodie-hobo clutching a guitar-case, his back to the camera, staring off into the blurred horizon.
I didnt expect to like this record at all. But I'm an idiot. Because the Fluffer is a fantastic record. Opener, the titular "Fluffer" sets out its stall magnificently, starting with a one - finger piano riff that would make a fetching title-theme for a quirky French cop show, before devolving into wheezy Ween territory, and eventually morphing into the now defunct theme tune for the "The Armstrong and Miller" show. And all in well under three minutes. "What to do" is bleached white faux reggae with a nursery rhyme refrain and a huge wall of distorting guitar and West-Coast harmonies. "JetPlane" is an hilarous euro-beat stomper with a pseudo-classical middle eight and synth-noise I havent heard since Hawk the Slayer. It maybe my favourite song of the year so far.
BES drifts in and out of Eels and Beck territory so quickly and gracefully that you barely notice his fleeting visits to points10cc, Scritti Politti and Radiohead. In fact you could go on picking out influences left, right and centre (Kate Bush? Sparks? Was that Jeff Wayne? A House? Petomane? REALLY?). But actually that's a pretty big diservice to what is a compelling and assured debut album. While The Fluffer sounds like a lot of things the whole is much greater than the parts. This is a big, warm, intimate and inspiring record.
Bloody awful cover though. And that font! What's wrong with comic sans? It's so friendly...
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