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Album Review

Vile Imbeciles
D Is For W Tee Vee Eye

Article written by Ged M - Oct 27, 2011

Vile Imbeciles: D Is For W

Andy Huxley formed the Vile Imbeciles after leaving Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, and before they turned into pantomime Goths. And he didn't go into EMBLD part 2, although his band are a challenge for anyone’s descriptive talents: “progressive jazz metal with a death wish” is all I can come up with. It’s difficult – math-rock that judders and jumps like a bicycle with wooden wheels careering down a cobbled street. Whenever they stumble upon something conventional, like a melody line, they stretch and punctuate it so much it’s no longer recognisable as such, and you're left with snatches of guitar twiddling and stuttery beats. The 14 tracks (47 minutes long) are in a state of constant conflict.

You want to know who it sounds like? I’d say, with my limited heavy/ metal vocabulary, that it’s like Mike Patton and Faith No More (contradicting Andy Huxley’s denial in the press release) with even a hint of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ loathsome noodling when things get a bit lax (like on ‘It Makes You Sad’). And there’s definitely something progressively rock in there too. I’m prepared to buy Huxley’s assertion that I don’t like the record because I don’t understand it, but that presupposes that there’s anything to understand. There are songs where it’s shronky out of fear of being meaningful, and songs where it should be easier to fall into a regular time signature but they adopt something unworldly/unwieldly. I like the way they play with the unconventional, I just don’t like how it turns out. The Vile Imbeciles are pretty good musicians – ‘When Cupid Fucked’ is a bastardised, spiky sex-blues that works – but most times they’re just mixing odd time signatures to bizarre vocals and bolting together a dozen disparate ideas. Commendable but unlovable.

Links:
http://www.facebook.com/vileimbeciles