There’s usually a reason why bands seldom get signed with unsolicited demos: they’re usually crap and the reason they’re unsolicited is because nobody, not even the band themselves, can be arsed taking half an interest and going to the effort of making a call or arranging a gig on behalf of those nice, well connected A & R people who turn up late in a taxi and spend the greater part of the evening thinking up ways to exploit their expenses allowance (and no, solicited doesn’t mean getting your mum to ring the label to ask for the postcode – but a good try). That The Beautiful New Born Children managed to get signed in this very fashion by one of the most savvy and vital labels of the moment, Domino Records, suggests one of two things: a. they’re shockingly fantastic or b. they’re better connected than we’ve been led to believe and their arrival at Domino HQ as a nondescript CD-R with no contact info is an indication of just how flippant and rebellious their press-folks wish them to be perceived and not how cynical they really are. Not that we needed telling, as just one listen to the fuzzy, thrashing punk chaos of frolicsome opener, ‘Do The Do’ and the equally swift and breathless follow up punch, ‘Paper Mill’ could have told us this band clearly didn’t give a fuck about the details. The barely appreciable silences between the tracks confirms it; hearing the Beautiful New Born Children is a little like having a panic attack – it comes on from out of nowhere, sends your pulse rate soaring, induces hyperventilative shock and leaves you quaking nervously in your strides almost as quickly as it arrives, blurring by in a knee-trembling 22 minutes of feverpitch elation. Fairs fair, the super-charged, giddy amphetamine rush has been aped successfully by a mighty old bandwagon of artists already. MC5 practically perfected it long before even the Stooges and the Ramones were a twinkle in Julian Casablanca’s eye – but that doesn’t mean to say there ain’t some mileage in it yet, even if ‘Hey People’ just falls short of actually proving it.
Information is scant on the band. Apparently, they’re a four piece. Lead singer Michael has one child, plays guitar both here and with a bevy of other projects including those electronic German swashbucklers, Schneider TM (Mute Records). Lorenz has two beautiful children, plays guitar but usually bass and who usually scrapes a living designing lace patterns for women’s lingerie. The drummer, Per Nyhus (one child) is usually a guitarist and is beating the skins for the first time on this record. And then there’s Kirsten who plays bass and is usually in a band with Per called River Phoenix and is married to Michael. It’s not a lot to go on, but the more you look at it, the more things begin to make sense. This is firstly a band with nothing to lose. Secondly it’s only natural the performances are so scrappy, intuitive and ill prepared (read ‘raw’) because no one is playing their own instrument. Thirdly (and this is just conjecture) their raucous, squalid output suggests a pack of experienced tech-heads thinking they can pass-off dirty rock without even breaking a sweat. End result: the flippant riposte of a ‘maturing’ nerdy elite to the juvenile conceit of garage rock.
As an exercise in anger-management by a committee of arty European electro boffins it works just fine but as authentic, bona fide garage rock it’s occasionally lacking. As every school-kid knows it’s one thing to do well in your theory, it’s quite another to perform in your practical.
Feisty, fiery and occasionally quite amusing but should come with a health warning.