I can wholeheartedly vouch that Kid’s Medicine is a flailing-about type affair, preferably while a touch inebriated, but it’s just as steamily scathing when sober. I tried it with shitty cask wine and headphones and it worked pretty well, though this collection works even better live. As it should. As jarring as it is enticing, as loose as it is relentless, as familiar as it is confounding, this debut EP from one A. Zeybek and his ‘lesser’ cohorts wallops and convulses in equal measures.
Opener Cheap Skates comes out snarling and doesn’t let up, sporting a 10-beat rhythm that defies its own discomfort to cruise viciously along, while guitar slashes and crunches its way through bizzaro-blues land. Zeybek yelps, seethes and croons over the glorious mess, seemingly invoking Nick Cave, Frank Zappa and Elvis all at once.
The CD comes without lyrics, and despite the package’s understated class, whatever’s being uttered here probably deserves to be properly understood. Rich in imagery, you could say. I caught something about a “taste for carnage” and some real manic utterances involving Roman Polanski in Lo & Behold. The cute-but-crass gem Team Playa throws out classics like, “I wanna give you my sliced oranges” and, “Drinkin’ pineapple juice for my spunk, cause I’m a team playa,” with a finale that perfectly balances the bluesy cheek and punkish intensity at play throughout Kid’s Medicine.
You can’t go past the intense wailing slow-motion bitchslap of Musket Full Of Vipers for intensity though: a lethargic, slinking blues line and yawning bass gives way to a swinging chorus of sorts, flowing over into a caterwaul of low-end stabs, white-hot guitar and depraved vocal delivery. I declare the whole affair a success.
BY MATT PANAG
Best Track: Musket Full Of Vipers
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, FUTURE OF THE LEFT, SIX FT HICK
In A Word: Gravelly Strut = Grut
