Jean Michel Noir (aka Liam Smith) that chap who amongst many other turns can be seen bashing the skins for Crocodile God suddenly put out a four track EP called Beelzebufo. It sounded good so we asked him for some questions. Here’s what Liam had to say.
‘Basically I’m just going back to what I know best which is punk. I’m a composer on films and have been making score and electronic music but needed to make noise again. Lockdown is hard for bands rehearsing/gigging obvs so I just needed to get cracking. Went and did it all myself socially distanced at What? Studio with Ste Cole.
I needed an outlet for political rage but also wanted to just spend some energy. I’m doing an album for release next year and wanted to just get cracking. I call the genre Mosh Pop and my influences here are the likes of Quicksand, Drive Like Jehu, TSOL, Misfits, Born Against amongst others.
I’ll play as a band when we can but for now it is a solo project. There’s musicians lined up for when we can play. The lyrics are about right wing scum but some are more on the nose than others’.
Here’s what we thought of the EP:
Beelzebufo starts with ‘Horse-Ghost’, a big sounding chunk of pop punk underpinned by huge sounding reverb washed guitars, breakdowns, rock n roll guitar blasts, echoey guitars coming at you sideways, ethereal melodies half glimpsed through a dense glorious cacophony on instruments. Dark and musically satisfying.
‘Smashed Monocle’ is more frantic and more straight up. The track is more direct with less going on but it doesn’t suffer for it. The vocals more up front and we get a quick one and a half minutes of angsty vocals over dark repetitive pop punk chords with pounding relentless drums.
Lal’s Wolf Catcher has big crashing chords and immediate melody that for some reason reminds me of The Skids, or even Bill Nelsons production style on that band. It sounds different again but still maintains the identity of this EP/Band. The breakdown shows creativity with all manner of kitchen sinks being used before its back to full flight power chord melodies.
The evil sounding start of ‘D1ckhead Party’ that staggers and instantly gets your attention. Solid thumping rhythm, discordant but melodic breaks that suddenly take off with the main rhythm. Relentless again.
This is a well played and excellently produced EP. It sounds enough different from a lot of similar material to be more than a little unique. There’s a very big sound, it has a lot of variety never lets up. Ace!
Words: RBY, Photos: RBY and Band Media
Bandcamp: https://mugsmasher.bandcamp.com/releases
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