Giraffes? Giraffes! – 7″ (2015)

So naturally when I woke up to find that Giraffes? feckin’ Giraffes! had, unannounced but for a series of teases, released a 7” vinyl named after its format (a.k.a. Spazz Master 7”), I waited for my wife to leave for work before dancing and writing the following words in a notepad file:

SUPREME STUTTER DELAY
MARIO!
GLORIOUS SOLO
RIFFS
NEE NEE NEE / NEE NEE NEE NEE / NEE NEE NEE NEE NEE NENENE
BUILD UP
PROG UNISON
ARPEGGIOS
GROOVE
… and that’s kind of all you need to know.

No. Take our word for it that we hate it when people see an opportunity to write an early review of an awesome piece of music and don’t listen to it enough to appreciate the nuances – see the Guardian’s attempt at the first Radiohead King Of Limbs review.

So I listened a second time. And a third. And a fourth. (It’s only two songs). If anyone ever wanted an introduction to Joe and Ken acting as one genre-spreading freakshow, this will serve very nicely. Right from the first cymbal-splash and snare-blast of each song, there’s barely a pause to reflect. Lovers of the tapping that dominated ‘hits’ (if we can call them that) on More Skin With Milk Mouth might go wanting, but who could help but smile at the little xylophone plonks that introduce the solo of ‘SugaaaaaSpazzazazz’, for instance? It’s noticeable that they’ve taken significant pages out of the progressive rock book this time around, cutting them up and sticking them together in colourful gruesome collage fashion with a load of other unexpected bits … is that cover the inside of a mouth with a gecko’s feet exploding through outer space? Still more palatable than those eyeballs.