It’s been a while in coming – five long years in fact – but having successfully crowd-funded the recording of their third album, Fight Like Apes follow up ‘The Body of Christ and the Legs of Tina Turner’ with an eponymous long-player that was worth the wait. All of the characteristic components are present and correct, and if they’ve rounded some of their angularity and cleaned up the sound a bit, they’ve not lost any of that all important edge or their propensity for cumbersome but amusing titles: ‘I Don’t Want To Have To Mate With You’, ‘Pretty Keen On Centrefolds’ and ‘Maevis Beacon Annihilation’ give a fair flavour here.
A bouncy keyboard line and jaunty chorus, propelled by a sturdy 80s disco beat are the key ingredients of ‘I Am Not a Merryman’ which kicks the album off in fine style. ‘Pop Itch’ is pure synth bubblegum, but of course, the lyrics are anything but. ‘Didya’ is a scuzzy, fuzzy slice of lo-fi synthpop driven by a thumping bassline that lands somewhere between The Pixies and Bis. The claws are still out on tracks like ‘Numbnuts’ and ‘Baywatch Nights’, too.
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As such, ‘Fight Like Apes’ is a deceptive album. Accessible and a comfortable fit with the ongoing return to 80s-flavoured retro pop stylings, it still packs some barbs among the relentless hooks.
Fight Like Apes Online
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