The Moonlandingz: No Rocket Required

Misplaced in area for seven years, The Moonlandingz return to earth with a brand new set of dystopian dance choices. Steve Morgan straps in for re-entry…

A band singing a few world gone to shit. The very last thing you want in a world going to shit, or so that you’d assume. However that is Sheffield. They do issues in a different way there – not least their pop music. Seven years on from debut Interplanetary Class Classics, on which the fictional brainchild band of Eccentronic Analysis Council duo Dean Honer and Adrian Flanagan was made flesh with the assistance of Fats White Household moonlighters Lias Saoudi (AKA Johnny Rocket) and Saul Adamczewksi, The Moonlandingz return from the stratosphere. Adamczewski has jumped ship, however No Rocket Required finds the remaining crew in high-quality fettle, with loads to say and as with their first providing, a bunch of prepared accomplices from both finish of pop’s space-time continuum – Iggy Pop, Nadine Shah, Jessica Winter – glad to assist them say it.

From the brisk, squelchy stomp of opener Some Individuals’s Music, the place Ewen Bremner’s spoken easy-going vibe morphs right into a Trainspotting ‘Select Life’ model frothing rant, its insidious charms unfurl throughout 10 tracks spanning an entertaining 39 minutes. Almost 10 of those are accounted for by bonkers nearer Krack Drought Suite (Elements 1-3) the place Rocket’s personal psychedelic reel unwinds in opposition to a nightmarish, jackhammer techno backbeat. With autotune. Solely two of the remaining eight songs move the four-minute mark – brevity is the soul of wit for these merry pranksters. It’s a refreshingly playful, funky fricassee. Lead-off single The Signal of a Man is a breezily kitsch Studio 54 Hello-NRG pastiche delivered in a splendidly arch, louche method. Saoudi revels in a persona pitched someplace between Divine and Patrick Cowley – “I stroll on water, I can stroll in sturdy winds, I can cook dinner an excellent coq au vin, in the event you take out the bins”.

It’s the golden age of disco, Jim, however not as we all know it. It’s seen by means of the smeared, greasy cracked lens of an evening out; assume Sheffield’s fabled Restrict membership circa 1980: terrain the place any try at fancy footwork proved an enormous step for mankind due to the legendarily sticky carpet. The standout observe is the sleazily seductive Roustabout, through which Shah’s spoken Tyneside tones wrap spherical scuzzy imagery – ‘daddy’s underwear, mummy’s urge for food’ – is a troublesome couplet to shake. Shah is a high-quality foil for Saoudi’s half-mumbled baritone, the observe climaxing in an operatic, nightmarishly woozy fairground haze that brings John Barry, or a extra poppy Portishead to thoughts. There’s no hurt in that.

Elsewhere, there’s loads to love from Jessica Winter’s visitor spot on the pure saccharine pop of Stink Foot, whereas Iggy Pop, 78 years younger this month, bares his soul – and contractually, presumably, his chest – on It’s The place I’m From. Image a misty-eyed Lee Marvin raking over the ashes of his previous and also you’re not far off. This voice has been lived in. “Received’t somebody put their arms round me? I can’t take the ache of those that’ve gone, I’d prefer to put your world behind me, however in all places I look is the place I’m from”. It’s a far take away from earlier observe The Bugs Have Been Shat On, which muses on the common themes of the oppressed, Saoudi conjuring up the righteous spit and snark of classic Howard Devoto, or a coked-up Pulp, as wild sax hovers over shredded guitars and a fidgety, driving beat.

The world has modified past recognition of their absence, however it is a band boldly going through the longer term whereas doffing a cap to the previous. It bottles the style of Sheffield like Henderson’s Relish. The ghosts of Cabaret Voltaire and the synth drone of early Human League lurk in these corners: the afore-mentioned Krack Drought Suite is an actual cackle within the darkness. Right here Saoudi in his Rocket persona lurches throughout an apocalyptic South Yorkshire panorama, like a mad cross between Richard Burton’s narrator in Struggle of the Worlds, solely crossed with Laibach and Mark E Smith. “For some cause or different everybody gave the impression to be engaged in racial bloodsports – it’s a ginger canine, it’s a fox” he muses, as he namechecks West Avenue (dwelling of the Restrict) and Orgreave (in the event you don’t know what occurred there in the summertime of 1984, test your historical past books).

If dystopic electronica’s your bag, you’ll discover it catchier than distemper in a pack of feral canines. And gloriously un-house skilled. “Bought my complete world spinning like a hog on a spit,” Saoudi intones over a skittering artificial snare on the wonderful Give Me Extra – paying homage to Prince, solely with a STD.
“We hope to be the most-hated fictional band by Christian rednecks within the US,” mentioned Adrian Flanagan again in the course of the band’s preliminary promotional rounds. It’s arduous to think about these area cadets can be allowed anyplace close to America today – the album cowl itself would care for that – however catch them in the event you can – we now have lift-off.

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All phrases by Steve Morgan @stevemorgan68.bsky.social. His profile is right here.