Cutthroat gel-razors!
Now generally the job at hand is to lend my ears to this musical offering and explain exactly what I think about it. A simplistic act that needs no chin-scratching or migraine-induced seizure, however with this band of hair-lovers, Whiskers, I am for once left with a logical postulation that evades an obvious resolution; this is an intricate and confusing problem: a conundrum, if you will. Firstly this Hardcore band from Norwich (made up from three members of Melodic-Punk band Broken Window Effect) have an exceedingly pleasing presentation with the band bio that has been 'aged' with the help of a lighter (nice touch), and through the record label who have a lovely trend of a vinyl-effect covering to the non-playing side of the CD. Top marks all round. The other thing/issue is that this is a gimmick band. The band are obsessed with body hair, specifically beards, sideburns and moustaches, and they play out these hairy-observations in six minutes over nine songs. So is this more tosh, or just more tash?
Sideburns is four seconds of that one word, whereas Barbershop is a little more value for money with an expansive eight words in five seconds. Opening song, Blessed, Beadle And Brunel connect the greatness of achievement in their many mediums and forms with the wearing of beards. This leads nicely to Beard Pride which shows that the band can knock out a decent Hardcore song, before the slightly more complex and less obvious Tash Is My Favourite Girl's Name which has some nice riffs and beats. Then some feverish riffs spit from the speakers in the fast-paced Sorry, Moustache before the last song, A Kestrel For A Shave which is a cracking ending, exploring the despair of a man succumbing to the marriage of razor and chin, and left feeling "beardless and hopeless".
The thing is, you can take as much salt with this as you want but the truth of the matter is that as Hardcore music goes this is played and sung well, with lyrics that have meaning. Yes, the subject matter may well not be of corrupt Governments, poverty traps and minimum wage, but the band take a subject and inject emotion and feeling to it. The songs flow nicely into each other so actually it doesn't feel like nine songs but perhaps three or four, and thus delivers a decent few minutes of cutthroat riffs and razor sharp lyrics. Brilliant stuff.