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Review: 'SAFE DISTANCE, THE'
'Songs'   

-  Label: 'Emotional Response'
-  Genre: 'Indie' -  Release Date: '2nd April 2014'-  Catalogue No: 'ER07'

Our Rating:
This is one of 3 singles all now out on Flagstaff Arizona's Emotional Response label. They all come with bonus material on the download cards and are on coloured vinyl. This time it's Blood Red for Stuart Anderson of Boyracer's collaboration with Crayola and David Nichols who you may or may not know from the busy duo's other bands.

The vinyl catches me out on first play as the cheeky sods have put it on a 33rpm 7" and I started it at 45RPM. Still, had it said so on the label I wouldn't have felt so dumb as I was a safe distance from the record player at the time (ho ho). As the lo-fi fizzing with odd keyboard bits kick in on Hey You it hooks you in before you even get to some odd lyrics about domination with a very cool repeating bass figure underneath it all.

Soap is an upbeat song about a sexual fantasy that includes having soap in your eyes. It's kind of like The Prisoners going off on one in a strange alternate universe. On the B-side A Big Splash is kind of like a skewhiff Luna song with incredible flange guitar effects. It also sounds like one of those 80's indie 60's revivalists but it's all about that guitar. Let me have loads more of that flanged out guitar love it. Sandpits is urgent frenetic almost shambling clatter pop hidden under all the noise with nicely sneered vocals.

The 6 bonus songs kicks off with Domesticated Male: a cool jaundiced look at being a well-trained domesticated male of clattering noise-pop and some very cool out of space organ sounds with a nod or two towards The Shend. The Cover of Adam and The Ants' Young Parisians sounds more like they are channeling Wasted Youth's Paris France, but either way it's a cool take on it even taking into account the odd whistling bit.

Sasquatch is naive indie-pop that again references Luna and has a good bit when the repetitive vocals drop out and the musical madness takes over like someone is on the deck of a spaceship. That's very cool incidentally. You don't often hear Bogshed cover versions but damn do they do a number on Fat Lad Exam Failure. It comes on like the Fall on speed: a very cool take on this 80's underground favourite.

Winged Man sort of suffers for following the Bogshed cover and coming as it does before a storming totally mental version of Hawkwind's Silver Machine that closes the bonus and damn what a great version with mad noises and crisp vocals. As out there as it needs to be.

This ep and download are well worth getting from Emotional Response Bandcamp page
  author: simonovitch

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SAFE DISTANCE, THE - Songs