The Eighties Matchbox B-line Disaster - In The Garden EP Review

The Eighties Matchbox B-line Disaster
In The Garden
EP Review

Five years ago, Brighton quintet The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster were rightly heralded as possibly the most exciting new band in the country. Their live shows often imploded into a cathartic mess of blood and sweat, while their debut album 'Horse Of The Dog' sounded years ahead of most of their peers (Muse being the obvious exception), almost like a musical honours degree in going back in time to create a chaotic-yet-enthralling future.

Sadly, the musical landscape didn't seem to want to change with them, and the ensuing obsession with all things Libertines-related meant that TEMBLD's goth-horror schlock rock seemingly fell victim to both the media and music industry's fashion dependency.

What makes it even more ironic is that bands like The Horrors - now deemed as being ridiculously cool (rather than just ridiculous) by some - would probably have never existed without this lot, and more to the point, are still nowhere near writing a tune even half as good as TEMBLD's 'Psychosis Safari'.

Onto the present then, and 'In The Garden', the band's first release in three years, is pretty much what you'd expect, or indeed want, from this band. Whether it be Guy McKnight's gut-wrenching vocals on the spiralling Cramps-rage of 'Horses Can Swim', or the frenetic stereo violence of the title track, this EP is classic Eighties Matchbox and a timely memory jog that one of the decade's most underrated bands are still alive and kicking.

8/10
Dom Gourlay