Lawks a mercy! Those of us who came virginal and unsuspecting to inventive Mancs I AM KLOOT via the surreal shuffle of their previous limited -edition single "Untitled #1" certainly won't have been expecting this bugged-out chameleonic cacophony as a follow-up.
Which isn't to say "Life In A Day" is anything other than entirely excellent. It's just that your reviewer didn't think that singer Johnny Bramwell meant it so literally when he recently told your unsupecting hack that it "sounds like The Stooges." Well, by God, it does! Or at least if Iggy hailed from Atherton rather than Ann Arbor it would. If he did, this would make "Fun House" with ease.
Produced with unlikely success by bright pop maestro Ian Broudie, "Life In A Day" is dirtier than a factory floor full of mud wrestlers and is driven brilliantly by huge voodoo drumming, Peter Jobson's sleazy slither of a bassline and some gloriously malevolent barking from Bramwell. "Stick your jokes, your hoax in a box, chew the chains, loosen the locks" he cries at one point. Beelzebub alone knows what he's banging on about, but boy it sounds cool. By the time it slinks out of focus, you're as intrigued as hell.
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The EP keeps two further dark marvels under wraps, too. "This House Is Haunted" is a tale of love, desire and murder most foul, adding descending piano lines and stinging, tremelo-y guitars to the full-on live sound, while the deceptively jazzy, acoustic "Cinders" finds Bramwell raking through the ashes in some style in a post-script not dissimilar to the conflagratory "A House" that closes Doves' great "Lost Souls" album.
Sadly, we have to wait out the summer before I AM KLOOT'S second album (the belated follow-up to 2001's "Natural History") will be released. I'd urge you to make the effort for this one, though, as its' vivid eclecticism will ensure your interest remains loaded and primed in the interim.
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