With Glasgow's Mummy Short Arms it was love at first sight. Those early singles led us to tip them for a sterling album to arrive at some point, and in 2012 it did. 'Old Jack's Windowless Playhouse' was fantastic, unique, twisted and accomplished; it even made our top 20 albums of the year list. The worry of course, is that a band can use up all their tricks in one go and then scrape around for ideas to cobble together a follow-up. Worse still, they can stick to the same formula, but with the ideas gone the songs suffer and a watered-down version of what went before is presented. 'Face Full Of Sand' is the first new material since then, so I guess you could say it's judgement day. We're pleased to report that not only have they come up trumps on the songwriting front, but none of the psychotic madness and individuality has been stripped away or lost its impact. This isn't just a rerun.
With a deceivingly tender, countryish intro, 'Face Full Of Sand' keeps you in suspense for a few seconds, but then it bursts into life with a maelstrom of guitars, drums and strange vocal mutterings in the background. They still sound like they belong in straight jackets, you still wouldn't trust them to feed your cat while you're on holiday, and you still wouldn't trust them to not put the fear of God into more innocent ears. The song is a triumph; it doesn't show a marked deviation in style, but it does show that they can take their trademark sound to a different level; there's plenty more in the tank yet. The B-side is a remix by JMK which doesn't strip away the band's sound and simply stick a vocal sample onto some dancefloor beats like your regular remixers, it adds a trippy, spaced-out vibe which when combined with those harrowing vocal cries adds a different atmosphere, but one that does justice to the original. It's different enough to sound like a totally separate song but similar enough to sound like Mummy Short Arms, and that's no mean feat. Lock up you daughters, pets, car and even yourself: Mummy Short Arms are back and they mean business.
Mummy Short Arms' website
Pre-order the single
Catch them live:
THREE FREE FLOWERS - Mummy Short Arms, Kick To Kill, alansmithee
Sat, April 5, Official 13th Note, Glasgow, United Kingdom
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