Album Review: The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster – ‘Blood & Fire’ (Black)

A triumphant return for Britrock's great weird hopes

Exactly how many Class As can a band guzzle before emerging on the other side? Ask The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. Once Britrock’s great weird hopes, TEMBD’s intermittent missives betrayed a downward narcotic abuse spiral fit to put the ‘disaster’ into that moniker. Yet Guy McKnight’s Buddhist shock-rock troops were always too eccentric to let such trivialities triumph. With the drugs shelved and a new guitarist, the band fucked off to France and returned with this. At first glance, the rebirth isn’t startling, trademark psychobilly still spewing from every orifice. But when McKnight announces “I could have died” seconds into ‘Love Turns To Hate’, it’s clear that dogged determination has superseded once-cocked eyebrows. The ghost of Cramps singer Lux Interior haunting [a]Editors[/a] isn’t a nice mental image, but that’s pretty much where we find ourselves. By the time ‘Under My Chin’ swaggers around the corner like Josh Homme’s undead lovechild, TEMBD’s full pomp stomp approaches unstoppable momentum. Absorbing on an almost parasitic level.

Adam Kennedy

Click here to get your copy of The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster’s ‘Blood & Fire’ from the Rough Trade shop

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