There are certain rules to this reviewing malarkey, hard as that might be to believe. You must neversay ‘I’. ‘I’ is too small, too easily countered as being the ravings of the minority. The reviewermust be grander than this: we; the magazine; anyone with an IQ greater than that of moss; the entirenorthern hemisphere. These are the kind of grandiose terms that must be used in order to signify themagnitude of the point being made.
Also, you never think. It’s not that you think that if the band were on fire you wouldn’teven bother to piss on them, you know this to be the case. Example: if Phil Collins was on fire,you wouldn’t even bother to piss on him. Because the reviewer has no doubt in their mind.
Third, and most important, never, ever, ever, describe something as being like something else onacid. In fact, just steer well clear of the whole drug/band simile thing. It isn’t big, it isn’tclever and moreover, it makes you look like a complete tool. Get fruity with your descriptions.Confuse. Write something so ridiculously contrived that people will assume that it’s actually reallyclever and it’s just the feebleness of their intellect preventing them understanding it.
Ach. Screw that. Hear this:
*chew*
*chew*
*chew*?
That’s the rules being eaten. That’s me, chowingdown on them. Mmmm. The rules taste good.
Because I like We Are Scientists. I think they’re great. To me, they’re like Napalm Death oncopious amount of peyote.
This balmy evening, in the grounds of Somerset House – a setting grand enough to make you feellike you’ve somehow stepped into a lost scene from Pride & Prejudice (where Mr. Darcy and MissBennett drink pear cider and hit the festivals) – I had a fantastic time. I grinned and I gurned andI punched the air at the myriad of occasions that We Are Scientists songs serve up so invitingly.
Thing is, I’m not even that fond of the last record. But live, WAS just step up a notch. They’recharming and witty and just plain funny. And if we’re talking about rules being crushed, there goesanother one. Bands shouldn’t be funny. Generally, it’s a bad thing.
But they make it work. This Scene Is Dead sounded great, Textbook was a beautifully melancholyinterlude and the set closing The Great Escape was as bouncy as ever. Plus it offered an unsurpassedopportunity to shout “Fuck that” within spitting distance of the Inland Revenue.
So kids, sometimes you should just say bollocks to the rules. I did, and look where it’s got me…
We Are Scientists MP3s or CDs
We Are Scientists on Spotify
