Tuesday 17 March 2015

Baby Chaos – You Can’t Shut Us Up / The Whispering Of Giants (Self Released)


So yet another amazing 90’s band have re-formed for another go, for some these re-formations can leave a bad taste in the mouth or seem like they might be pointless, for instance Hurricane #1 have recently started organising shows without Andy Bell, which is fine but considering he wrote the entirety of the excellent debut makes you wonder if there’s any point other than nostalgia. Nostalgia’s fine for a few one off shows, like The Stone Roses who made promises of a proper comeback but 3 years later we're yet to hear even a demo of a new song. Then there’s bands like Kerbdog who started a comeback last year and released the excellent ‘Electricity’ which gives me high hopes that we’ll hear a full-length at some point, so what’s worse a band just re-treading old ground but sounding amazing or a band making a genuine comeback but failing miserably with songs that aren't a patch on the originals, did anyone really need a new Bush album? So over the last few years there’s been various rumours that Chris Gordon et al were planning to resurrect Baby Chaos, a band that I genuinely loved from my youth that I didn't want to see their memory tarnished with a shitty comeback album that wouldn't do their genius justice, regardless I heard they were playing Ginger Wildheart’s Halloween Hootenanny, and I travelled all the way from Leeds to Wolverhampton to catch them and see if the old magic was still there, I was not disappointed. The first of the new songs played ‘Blackbirds’ immediately impressed and not long afterwards the free download of ‘Have Faith In Yourself’ amazed me with some amazing production and hammer hitting guitar riffs, my hopes were starting to raise. Then I was sent a link to the first double A-side single from new album ‘Skulls, Skulls, Skulls, Show Me The Glory', kicking off with immediate urgency of 'You Can't Shut Us Up' which brings back just how brilliant Chris Gordon always was at writing huge melodies, that are instantly memorable while still being quirkily original, smashing to a strong end with Helmetesque riffing it sets things off nicely. I'm already suitably impressed when 'The Whispering Of Giants' gently starts with an almost mainstream sound akin to Snow Patrol showing just how amazing Chris' vocals are, better than the old days if anything, this song should really finally break them onto bigger things, it's huge soaring melody with twisted staccato guitar lines are impressive enough, but then 2 and a half minutes in it turns into a frenzied rabid attack of a song. Based on the 4 songs i've heard so far, Baby Chaos are already contending for album of the year, this is a resurrection that would put Jesus to shame, and the production of the 3 songs I've heard are damn near perfect, welcome back lads.

10/10

http://www.babychaos.com/

The new album is just for pre-release this week, seriously get it ordered.