And so, just as suddenly as they appeared smearing a day-glo riot of attitude, angularity and Brian May fret widdle all over the shop, they disappeared once again.
So R.I.P TEST ICICLES, then. But while we’ll no doubt continue to enjoy their mental, but sometimes magnificent “For Screening Purposes Only” album for some time to come, it’s debatable we’ll remember their parting shot, the self-explanatory “Dig Your Own Grave” with such reverence for more than the next few weeks.
Because this seven-tracks-plus-two-‘hidden’-demos affair is pretty much the spotty and uneven affair you’d expect, not least when you discover most of the tracks are remixes of varying and manic quality. Yes, certainly parts of it pass muster: the delightfully-titled “All You Need Is Blood” has more time changes than an ice skater after an iffy vindaloo but is nonetheless great, frenetic pop of sorts, while there’s no denying the fun to be had from catching the robot-winding-down-after-a-power-cut vocals and “bring out your dead” chorus chant during the ‘Raary Deci-Hell’s Demo’ version of “The Plague & Pestilence”. The ‘Raary’s Remix’ of “Pull The Lever” has its’ moments too, cranking up the hammer horror aspect and Scooby Doo keyboards and the previously unreleased “Stuck In The Bend” (“I’ve gotta get back my attention span!”) reconnects the Testies with the garage in no uncertain terms and makes it abundantly clear that they hadn’t yet wrung the creative sponge out entirely.
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Elsewhere, though, the plot gets glaringly mislaid. “Your Biggest Mistake” (unreleased single edit) is just about acceptable in a Birthday-Party-duff-up-The-Futureheads kinda way, but the ‘Chromehoof’ remix of “Circle Square Triangle” is murky and unnecessary; “Pull The Lever” (Jitset Remix) makes them sound minimal and squeaky clean (surely never the point) and the ‘hidden’ demos of “What’s Michelle Like?” and “Who Ate All The Offal?” should have remained just that. In answer to the latter’s question, the answer appears to be The Test Icicles and now they’re shatting it back all over us. Execrable.
“Dig Your Own Grave”, then, brings one of the stranger stories in recent Indie times to a typically chaotic conclusion. Test Icicles had a daft name, lived fast, died abruptly and messily and left a bizarre and mutilated corpse. Here’s to the resurrection?
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