Following on from the ‘Disquiet EP’ a year ago, and debut album ‘Vanishing Island’ in the spring, purveyor of lo-fi DIY alt-rock tuneage Matt Finucane wraps up 2019 with another EP of entirely fresh material.
The title carries connotations of explosive neurons and involuntary convulsions, an attack, a spasm, a loss of control. Paroxysm and pain. I’m prepared for an unbearable racket, a blistering blast, an aural breakdown. In the event, Matt Finucane delivers something rather more contained, but divergent, multi-faceted, firing in a number of different directions.
‘Evil Relief’ fades in with scraggly, scratchy guitars and an insistent, punchy rhythm, over which Matt’s vocals have a certain glammy slant as he comes on like a cross between Iggy, Bowie and Mark Eitzel. The sound quality on the musical backing is murky, almost muffled, but works in that it recreates a certain vintage vibe.
‘Honest Song’ is Finucane’s stab at a big pop croon tune, and he pulls it off nicely. Perhaps to atone for this accessible, near-commercial effort, he plunges into sprawling spaced-out progginess with even the vaguest hints of jazz on the psychedelic six-minuter that is ‘Raw Material’. ‘Slaughter Ink’ strips it back and finds Finucane wandering nonchalantly into singer-songwriter territory, but the lack of pretence and adherence to his lo-fi values gives a subtly subversive, anti-muso twist.
And so it is that over the course of 4 songs and 20 minutes, Matt Finucane demonstrates that he’s a singular artistic voice in a sea of sameness, and if 2019 has seen him establish himself, 2020 looks like being the year he takes it to the next level.