The Old Romantic Killer Band
The Swan With 2 Necks
Bad Sneakers Records
For those about to rock in a country-punk stylee we salute you!
Bad Sneakers records, who have been going since around 2006, with Bad Sneakers being a Saturday night club night long before that and seemingly since time. They seem to have a penchant for finding hot new talent with a skewiff and different take on the old rock and pop style, or just simply bands that you just want to keep a secret and keep them close to your heart but you know should be getting bigger attention because they’re just that little bit unique and special. Largely the bands have been signed from the Leeds/Wakefield/West Yorkshire area. Among there was their first signing who are the brilliant disco/doo-wap/crooning scuzzy punk of The Sugars – check out their debut album from earlier this year ‘The Curse Of The Sugars’, the funky hip-hop band Middleman, who make The Streets look pale in comparison, and of course the yearning dramo-pop brilliance of Kendal’s Wild Beasts who started out on Bad Sneakers.
Now along come the 2 piece The Old Romantic Killer Band from Leeds, who are made up of singer and guitarist Harry Johns and Greg Holland on drums, who have been burrowing away in a very loud corner for the past year or so, creating a glorious racket and making peoples ears bleed – in a very good way by the way – in the process. Since their debut single ‘You Don’t Know How To Dance’, they follow that up with their debut album ‘The Neck With 2 Swans’, which lasts barely 30 minutes, so it doesn’t outstay its welcome at all, but with the quality 2 minute ditty’s that make up this 9 track record it warrants repeated listen. And with the amount of punk, country and blues that comes from this record and from this band you’d think there’s more than 2 people in this band also and with their rip roaring punk and country sound you probably wouldn’t guess they were from Leeds either.
‘The Swan With 2 Necks’ is made up of a mixture heated up rocking which become unhinged, such as the scuffed up and The Bronx-esque distorted guitar brilliance ‘Things To Come’ , and loose limbed rock ‘n’ rollers such as the cool sounding ‘Trouble Causer’, and then there’s a mixture of the 2 on ‘The Resolve’, which see’s Harry Johns hollering ‘so we danced for the last time/with too much wine/and I believed in you all this time’, which like the words starts of calm and collected before brewing up like a mid-west hurricane and flying into near rage and almost taking your head off in the process, like an early Kings Of Leon if they really let loose.
Then there’s the acoustic lament ‘You Knew I Had A Darkness In Me’ which is like early Gomez before they went down hill, but much better than that description sounds. As The Old Romantic Killer Bands name might suggest they have a few songs that deal with a drunken and twisted kind of romance and the darker side of it, on the aforementioned ‘You Knew I Had A Darkness In Me’ finishes off with Harry cruelly and bitterly singing, ‘Don’t say you love me anymore because I’ve opened the door.’ But on the more upbeat ‘Lovers Pass’ although he’s still confused and confounded by love and romance he still rather lovingly sings ‘I’ve got so much love to give you.’ But that’s the beauty of this record it takes you on a rocking and rolling rollercoaster of a ride with is brutal unpredictability.
© Ben Bradford
www.myspace.com/theoldromantickillerband www.badsneakers.co.uk
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