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Demo Review
The Irrepressibles Love Laced Your Heart With Diamondsof Naked Design
Article written by
James S - Jul 13, 2005
Having seen The Irrepressibles play live a while back, I was looking forward to hearing this demo. Sadly, with hindsight, the warning signs were all there. Sure, they’d stood out that night in the Groucho Club (of all places) but they’d have had a hard job not to when sandwiched between wanky jazz noodlings, some bloody awful poetry and one woman with the sheer nerve to combine both.
The first time you listen to this three track demo it’s quite remarkable. Unlike anything else you’ve heard this year, give or take Antony & The Johnsons if Antony had had operatic training, it seems suitably fresh and exciting. Sadly, every subsequent listen reveals it to be the direct inverse of ’a grower’; it just becomes more and more tuneless and uninspiring each time.
Vocalist Jamie McDermott undoubtedly has a fine set of pipes on him, but frankly he doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with them, other than over-egg the pudding. Supposed lead track Love Laced Your Heart With Diamonds is a Francophile accordian-driven slouch through, well, something, though exactly what is hard to say as the vocal theatrics render most of the lyrics incomprehensible.
Knife Song and Lullaby On The Lid Of My Eye follow in much the same vain, though the latter has the somewhat eye-opening chorus line of “I’ll be your queer” to grab your attention. Had I considered the matter more, I should probably have concluded that any band playing at the Groucho would come to no good. Had I known that they referred to themselves as a ‘collective’, I would have already run a mile.