It's over 25 years since I first randomly received some music through the post by Edley O'Dowd, when his band of the time The Toilet Boys were featured on the Teenage Kicks magazine mix tape, that a few of the mags overseas subscribers were sent in the late 90's by Michael, one half of the mags team. Edley is also known as a long-term member of Psychic TV.
Scorpion Tea is the new band Edley was invited by Chris Cruz to join, they then enlisted Anthony Diaz as vocalist and Fern Puma on bass who then recorded the album to tape at Los Angeles Studio 22 with Thomas Dolas and Joo Joo Ashworth producing.
The A-side opens with Take Solace In Suffering a hard driving sleazy glam dirge, questioning how things have got to where they currently are, wondering why we need to suffer like this.
Exacting Father lets us know why they had to rebel against the rules being imposed, the guitars ramp up the distress, as the bass taps out the hits, the pain increases.
In A Vile Suit takes an L7 style dirty riff, adds more distortion for the spoken word vocals, letting us in on how vile your clothes sense really is.
There Thriving Without Us is a gloomy industrial dirge of loss and isolation we have all been wrapped up in during the 2020's.
Six Souls Afloat has a garage industrial sleaze feel, for poor people clinging to a boat trying to survive, or escape from terror and find a better life, as they end up being trapped in your mind instead.
The B-side opens with Clandestine Whispers new wave industrial gloom for the corpses abandoned, the downtrodden living or dying in despair.
Scarlet Misquote sounds like early Clan Of Xymox as the explore how they heard your words so wrong, a perpetual part of writing reviews is mishearing lyrics, even when you have a lyric sheet, but this mistake is about something dark and dreadful.
Summer In The Shade leaves you feeling unsettled at all the dangerous behavior spoiling the summer.
Obsidian promises howls into the void like an industrial Foetus re-mix, as sneered vocals break down to an off-adult nursery rhyme to unsettle, giving you nightmares as it builds into a foreboding new reality.
The Album closes with Panic Attack a deep dub industrial wail, dark booming bass, sheets of noise with whispered vocals explain the toll you pay for that Panic Attack that's a regular feature of life in the 2020's.
Find out more at https://www.givetake.life/scorpion-tea???https://www.facebook.com/scorpionteatime https://scorpiontea.bandcamp.com/album/scorpion-tea
