records

Leechwoman - Three 3Zero [lp]
Approximately twenty-five years in the making, Leechwoman's second album is little more than a direct follow-up to their first. Which suits us just fine.

Once again they drag the legacy of industrial music back onto the streets of South-East London and give it a good kicking, like Neurosis gone apeshit around Sellafield. It's harsh, brutal and totally involving.

Produced by 2nd Gen's Wajid Yassen and Leechwoman's own soundman Raye Calouri, 'Three 3Zero' is one long tribal demonstration, a statement of violent intent using whatever they found on the local scrap heap, things that the everyday bands leave behind. This, you soon realise, is the remains of true industrial music, a fearsome barrage rising directly from Lewisham's foulest, filthiest sewers.

Each track is an object lesson in primal savagery, the clanking, driving percussion, cathartic vocal howl and grinding undertow of what used to be bass and guitar. Yet Leechwoman are much more than your average junkyard nihilists, possessing a rhythmic dexterity which is the key to their appeal. It may only have a rudimentary tune, but the relentless pounding soon becomes strangely, masochistically, appealing.

There's even an outburst of white-noise-molested gabba to finish it off, all in the name of extremity of course.

Leechwoman continue to be one of the most fiercely, resolutely independent bands in the country, refusing to conform or bow to fashion. And for that alone they deserve your attention.

But this album comes with the strongest recommendations. Just approach it with caution.

Steve