February 16, 2007

Dive Dive: The Revenge Of The Mechanical Dog

Punk 1, Apathy 4. No strength in depth

3 / 10 Million Dead; Reuben; Jetplane Landing; Britain is littered with the corpses of quite-good home-grown punk bands whose careers nose-dived after they came up against The Great British Indifference. Sadly, Oxford’s Dive Dive are unlikely to make it even that far, for apart from a few choice numbers, this second LP is sleepy slush. When the music works, as it does on ‘Take It, It’s Yours’’ story of a mugging, it finds its good work usurped by bumbling songwriting. In this case, wonderfully awful couplets such as, “Through his drug-fuelled numbing haze/He claims the stains on his pants were caused by mayonnaise”, sound as if they’re sung by a gent whose voice resembles Brian Molko suffering from testicular torsion. Yaaawn. Warm milk, anyone?

Mike Sterry

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