Choirs of angels are singing their name, well at the beginning of this latest Retched release anyway as ’12,000 Miles from You’ starts with a burst of heavenly sounds before the band jump straight into the hellish raw riff soaked piece of musical violence you’d be more expecting of them. This song is dedicated to an Australian beer called Tooheys - the thing they are allegedly 12,000 miles away from but I went onto a map and measured it to be only 10 and a half thousand miles from Wirral to the Tooheys Brewery in Sydney (Lidcombe to be precise). C’mon guys, your punk credentials are being undermined here by a lack of straightforward geography skills. Blaster of a track, great video.
‘I Never Washed It’ alternately blasts out then staggers the chords whilst powerhouse drums keep all the noises spinning satisfactorily. I don’t want to know what vocalist John never washed. I’m not fucking asking, ok. Fantastic and savage lead guitar work near the end that Ron Asheton would’ve been proud of.
A humongous wall of fuzzed up noise brings on ‘Condition 19’. Slower and heavier than the other tracks and possessing a real power. The vocals harness this and go along for the ride, all snarling and oddly sounding a bit like a punk Ozzy with that from beyond the grave voice on all the early Sabbath albums. Turns out all the vocals were recorded, not beyond the grave but in vocalist Johns bathroom. A sharp burst of melodic guitar and the bass just keeping it where it should be, fuck, where it needs to be. We were going to rave on this track but just was he passed over the album bass player Dave said proudly ‘I wrote condition 19’ so we changed our mind, its crap, there you have it, this song causes warts.
Anosmic Harmonic (Editor: You fucking wha?), which as everyone knows refers to smell blindness (Editor: Fuck off lad, and the Retch, you can fuck off too, fucking smart-arses), is a more psychedelic noise sodden romp, JPs lead guitar is truly allowed to wail and bounce off the walls in a free form assault that firstly keeps melody going and then turns into a psych miasma (Editor: which the fuckers probably can’t smell, bastards).
Vietnamese Baby’ keeps the repeated motif thing going all the way through allowing the band to keep hammering away at your defences like a musical main battle tank. Perfectly toned lead guitar shrapnel lifts things as the drums start really hammering away and the song hits a genuine musical climax.
‘(Don’t) touch me, you’re sick’ toys with Mudhoneys ‘Touch Me I’m Sick’ but goes off with a similar vibe but a more power chord approach. Nice screaming guitar towards the end.
Though two tracks were released as singles (12,00 Miles and Don Touch Me), each has its own lovely cover art. All this musical miasma for a straight fiver.
Words: RBY, Photos: Band media, RBY
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Album from Bandcamp: https://thedryretch.bandcamp.com/album/cultural-backslidin
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12,000 Miles Video: https://www.facebook.com/TheDryRetch/videos/118597713314337