Jon Jones & The Beatniks Movement - 'Engine Power EP'
Emerging blinking into the sunlight from the blackened basements of Bradford comes… another garage punk band. Four piece Jon Jones and the Beatniks Movement seem to be aiming for the kind of sound that causes faces to melt and ears to bleed - which is all well and good when it’s done well. In this case it just seems as though petulant, malignant emotions were fed through as much distortion as possible before being stamped onto silicon.
With ‘Engine Power’ it’s immediately obvious that JJ&TB are a group whose defining characteristic is wild, directionless anger. ‘Rope’ raises blisters, a sinister riff and ruthless drumming combining with Irish Joe’s desperate screeching to generate two minutes of insistent horror. The distortion is intensified further on ‘Cheers Jimi’, before blasting out to other side of fury with the ferocious ‘Pushin’ Fuckin’’. And this is then replicated almost verbatim on the last named track ‘Screw Loose’ - it turns out that infantile rage doesn’t become more meaningful no matter how adamantly it’s repeated.
For some all this may sound like a glowing recommendation. If so, then enjoy. For me however the defining feature of JJ&TB’s debut EP is that at just five tracks (plus two unnamed bonus songs) it’s gratifyingly brief.