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The Paper Chase - Hide The Kitchen Knives [lp] Southern Records "We're waiting, god chose us" says the severely creepy red neck voiceover at the end of track one, ‘I Did A Terrible Thing’, of this really rather excellent album. A Texas band, derived almost entirely of Shellac/Jesus Lizard bass heavy grooves, Tom Waits style piano and the yelpy shouty vocals popular with many a US act and done so bloody awfully by many a UK one, this actually reminds me massively of a Glasgow band called Lapsus Linguae - though LL are notably more influenced by complicated rock old men the Cardiacs. Anyway that slightly irrelevant comparison to my friends that no one has heard aside (though LL do have an album on Fierce Panda), this record kicked my ass. With lines like "I'm a swinging axe, I'm a baseball bat" yelled over the top of a groove that sounds like it was achieved by repeatedly smacking the whole bands ass with a big paddle, you can't miss. The arrangements and production save it from being a mere Shellac/Minimalist rip off affair, with lots of lush instrumentation battering home the tales of southern brutalism, and the catchiness of the tunes like ‘Where Have Those Hands Been’ means they stick in the mind like the Unabomber, Waco, and other such fine US institutions. Ian Unpeeled (the zine that covers the John Peel shows, info from shane@unpeeled.freeserve.co.uk)

Southern Records