Now that sounds like the band to be in. Smoking jackets, snifters and cigars, a hint of Kray twins underworld chic meets Francis Bacon in the Thomas á Beckett, and all round to Turner’s gaff afterwards for a spot of knuckle shuffle from a bit of East End Dickensian rough.
Idle fantasising aside, TVEGC are actually based in Cardiff, boasting a pair of doe-eyed cuties for a rhythm section and a raffish artful dodger on guitar and vocals. Cracking song titles, yes (‘The Tales Of Hermit Mark’, ‘Stupid As Wood’, 'Ban The Gin’, ‘My Son Spells Backwards’), but what about the cut of their musical jib?
Well, fractious post-punk is the order of the day: bits of Slits, a soupçon of Pop Group, shards of Birthday Party, screeds of Breeders, shreds of Dead Kennedys, the odd surf riff pilfered from early B52s by way of Poison Ivy or John Doe, all rendered Anglocentric via a quirky lyrical sensibility (tales of rotgut shut-ins and Valleylands paranoia and Asperger’s syndrome savants). The bass and drums are beefy and Albini-fied, the guitars barbed, the backing/lead vocal bickering as entertaining as somebody else’s domestic spat. Kudos to Pipettes/Go! Team producer Gareth Parton – TVEGC make a gratifyingly gut-churning noise, one that might well describe the tormented inner condition of Ianto – the hill-dwelling avenger in the Niall Griffiths classic Sheepshagger – were the feral little bugger loosed on the assembly gathered in Amis’s Dead Babies.
See you back here for the second album, then.