Friday 25 July 2008

Review - Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual

Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual

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6 out of 10

Ice Cream Spiritual opens the chest-freezer of the last thirty years of popular music, throws several tubs of musical flavour onto the floor and dances in the slush, cackling like a maniac. The overall feeling is of Melt-Banana being taken back in time and force-fed a diet of Sugarcubes and Sonic Youth, rather than Boredoms and the Damned. Beg Waves flits about like Bearsuit on acid. The spirits of Bow Wow Wow arise in 7 Souls, conjured by the Native American primal-scream therapy of the vocalist, who appears to be Diamanda Galas' little hippy sister.

The current vogue for spiky guitar work as evinced by Bloc Party et. al. is here smashed into a million mirror fragments by breakneck pace, kaleidoscopic drumming and frenetic fuzz. Things don't slow down until halfway through Celebrate the Body Electric, and then only for a few seconds. A glorious bit of heavy riffing booms us back to hyperspace. Late For School stands out, if only for probably the single piece of discernable lyric on the whole album - after two minutes of Tortoise-like moodiness and insane leprechaun giggling, Shaggy from Scooby Doo suddenly shouts, "Oh no, I'm late for school!" Yes - that'll be the mushrooms you took to make the music, I suspect. Anyway, moving on - Siouxsie Sioux rips the Guided By Voices songbook into shreds for Sky Drool and Small Wevs, before the babbling twin-guitar brook of Die Allman Bruder provides an eventual and well-deserved Zen finish - but just look at the mess on the floor... Goodness only knows what they're like live. We'll find out in September - if the band doesn't spontaneously combust first.

Listen: www.myspace.com/jreamteam

Tracklist:
1. Beg Waves
2. G Shock
3. 7 Souls
4. Celebrate The Body Electric (It Came From An Angel)
5. Late For School
6. Sky Drool
7. Small Wevs
8. Die Allman BrĂ¼der

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