Perhaps there are too many guitar bands, too many leather jackets and pretend rockers, too many three chord tricks and it's against this six-string zeitgeist that Twisted Charm are operating.
In the oversubscribed field of indie, it is pretty damn rare to find something that's this tough to categorise. That's the beauty of Twisted Charm. Dressed, like all the best punk rock crews, in skinny rent boy threads, they breathe a high IQ attitude and ostensibly have a tough pop feel - a kind of post-modern brave new world of pop touch. However, just when you think you got them nailed, they somehow wander off on another tangent.
There's spikiness to their shtick and a gritty humanity, a sardonic, suburban observation, a small town aesthetic - observers from county town England who now live in the big bad smoke - their songs are spiky observations of modern life that ring so true that in France they are looked upon as being a fiercely political crew.
Their forthcoming album has a neat cynical edge that the French may have found some political aggro in them, but then they do like to get on the streets and riot! Looking at it from our point of view it's classic English social observation, that kind of Ray Davies thing of singing of boring holidays in beat up seaside towns and rotting away in front of TV, the cool thing about the band, though, is that they are the very same people leading these boring lives. They sing from the inside reflecting the humdrum back at you.
Growing up in Northampton has left them with a seething sense of frustration and a dark sense of humour that prevents the band from falling into the robotic-ness of the future pop field. Their roots are in Sonic Youth and then the post hard core of experimentalists like Blonde Redhead before delving into post punk. Front man Nathan Doom talks with excitement of Essential Logic and James Chance and then of the Stranglers whose sheer melodic craft and obstinate refusal to be bagged up by any fad or scene has left them as a band to be respected by those that know. Maybe the Stranglers fourth album, 'The Raven' with its broad sweeping keyboard driven pop that still retained a black belt punch is a pretty cool marker for where the Twisted Charms are coming from, albeit in a modern sense.
Nathan is a cinema freak and this is obvious from the songs 3D nature. He's got pop star stamped all over him, pretty and effeminate but with an edgy toughness and sharp worldview that is so quintessentially English.
They have toured with the Klaxons but whilst their quirky energy and off the wall funkiness could easily see them take on a venue full of new rave kids and tear the house up they are far too bloody minded to don the bells and whistles and take the easy route. This will be in their favour. Too many bands are cowards and it's the outsiders that always make their mark in the long run.
Expertly recorded by Ladytron producer Lance Thomas, Twisted Charm sound like John Betjimen set to the robotic funk that was such a key element of the original post punk period, except Twisted Charm sound very now.
The band are hooked onto everything from the late night booze prowling wolf of Tom Waits to the wonky pop genius of the Sparks and its perhaps the latter that give us another clue to what's going on here. The Sparks mid seventies twisted Teutonic genius pop with its clever lyricism and skewed sense of humour made for some great pop action, Twisted Charm have the same sort of art school smarts without ever going to art school, they also have a knack for transforming their odd and unique sound into something accessible. This will be their paycheque. It's the same kind of shiny pop with a dark undertow that Ultravox used when they were good.
They also pack an innate toughness; there is an echo of the bludgeoning poetry of The Fall. Twisted Charm are putting the mental into experimental and making it pop. There's an exotic whiff of the underground here too, like all the classic awkward bastards who somehow used their exotic weirdness to represent their time.
This is a maverick howl with its own charm set to a skewiff knack for great hooks. There is a sleaze and a leer here, a knowing wink and a very British love of the three-minute manifesto. Twisted Charm sound like a nu millennium, a nu manifesto pop!
JOHN ROBB TWISTED EARS:
DOMINIC:
Out Hud - "Street Dad" - LP
NATHAN:
Alles Ist Gut - "DAF" - LP
JOHHHHNNN:
Diagram Brothers - "Some Marvels Of Modern Science" - LP
MAX:
Swell Maps - "International Rescue" LP
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