Alarma Man - S/T

Alarma Man

Last.fm
Buy It

Download






Tracklist:
1. Sweden Sweden
2. Cheese My Dad
3. Fell in Love With a Woman Twice My Size
4. I Am Eleven Years Old, I Have No Animals
5. Signed Up for Games and Theory
6. High Tech Towers
7. Shut Up or Chaque Jour
8. This Is Not a Teaser
9. Illuminati
10. Viper


I had to blog this, as it's recently began to gain an unshakeable foothold in my listening time. A shame that not more people have heard of these folks, Alarma Man is the aural equivalent of being shaken roughly and given a slap in the face before eating some ice cream. This record has some wonderfully fun moments and a few genuine tunes, but you'll have to fight through aggressive math rock buggery to get there. This ain't foals.

Album opener Sweden Sweden starts off with a squealing guitar rallying call, before hurtling along through an auditory thorn bush of guitars. The bass and drums then pave the way for some seriously pent up guitar frustration, and the motherfucking ghost train kicks back into action again. It's hard not to listen to this with a dumbass grin on your face. The track soon develops into a two hand tapping math rock extravaganza.
The album continues at the same breakneck speed, but gratification is rarely as instant as the first track. Cheese My Dad is what the mob would have as their soundtrack, assuming they were down with the Swedish instrumental scene. A genuinely dark and arrogant bugger, it still manages to get under your skin. Then again, so do BCG injections.

Fell in Love With a Woman Twice My Size recalls some of the insta catchyness of the albums first track, and is frikkin' fantastic. You'll know what bit i'm talking about when it kicks in. Yeeaaaaah. Catchy as herpes. The main verse (?) slams into your head and when that hook starts playing, it probably seems a lot more perfect than it is, by contrast. I mean, if you'd just spent a week walking in the desert with barely enough water to survive, you'd be able to force yourself to drink a pint of Stella. If you were in the pub with your mates, the thought of the same pint would quite rightly turn you. Having said that, it's still brilliant, and an album highlight.

I Am Eleven Years Old, I Have No Animals must surely have left the bassist with carpal tunnel syndrome. It's not particularly melodic, but what it lacks in tuneage it makes up for in being fucking insane. You're not going to put it on at a family do instead of Chasing Cars or Fix You, but if you're pumped or you've just had a particularly strong coffee, yes. This'll do it.

Signed Up for Games and Theory is a bit more of a slow burner, and not really what you want when listening to this sort of music, really. Though, a slow burner in these guys terms is still like being twatted with a bulldozer. It's not as fun as other tracks on the album, but still manages to sound like it's boring through your skull.
High Tech Towers marches along angrily before unleashing a turbo charged melee of power chords and tech metal tapping. Again it ruffs you up at the start, but ultimately your patience is rewarded.

The album chugs away at a similiar runaway train on fire speed for the remainder, with closer Viper in particular offering some menacing math punk. It encapsulates the overall sound of the album into five and a half minutes, and successfully references the touchstones of this band - the likes of Refused and Don Caballero- and still manages to imprint their catchy, punch in the face sound.

As an album, it isn't spectacular, there's some tracks that Alarma Man could do without, or that they should have spent more time on or replaced with other tracks. It does however have some brilliant standout tracks, and they alone are worth a listen of this album. As an entire album it's still enoyable though- whether you're after a 3 minute catchy instrumental punk song, or want something to soundtrack you going insane, there's something here for everyone.

One that shouldn't have been a silent alarm.

7.2/10