Blurt have been going for a fair while – some 38 years to be precise – and started out as one of the early Factory Records signings. While their output has been sporadic in its emergence, particularly since the end of the 1980s, they’ve remained a going concern. Their fourth live album of their career is their first since 1989, since when they’ve added five studio albums to their catalogue. This set, recorded at Café Oto in London, replicates the track listing of their most recent, 2015’s ‘Beneath Discordant Skies’.
Listening to the monotonous gothy groove of ‘Let Them Be’, with its fractured, fractal guitars, they sound like an early Factory band. But the shrieking sax adds another dimension to the tension as Ted Milton barks dark invocations. The band at times display the punk energy of The Adverts, coupled with a brooding edge and a certain angularity. Occasionally veering into a space that straddles The Sex Pistols and the Psychedelic Furs, while also venturing into more experimental territory, as exemplified by the meandering ‘Stella by Arc Light’, and if the dub-tinged ‘Fresh Meat for Martyrs’ is a shade middling, the frenetic ‘Oh Look Who’s Out on Parole’ invited comparisons with the angular tension of The Pop Group as a howling guitar judders around an insistent rhythm.
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Blurt may have failed to achieve wider success beyond a cult status. But perhaps the fact they’ve always existed on the fringes has been key to their survival, and their sustained vitality. As such, ‘Bomb’ is no nostalgia fest, but a document of a working band who possess a rare energy.
Blurt Online
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