"Your Face is Everywhere" by Septic and the Tanks
Review
What a busy day Sarah Croom has ahead of her! I told you the other day that Concrete Fun House, with whom she is bass player and backing vocalist have their debut single "Caught Wanking" out on June 1st via the medium of Dammitrecords' June edition of their Dam-Nations series. Now I learn that the latest single from her other band, Septic and the Tanks, namely "Your Face is Everywhere" is also out: would you believe it as part of Dammitrecords' June edition of their Dam-Nations series. Coincidence? Perhaps.
As you know, the latter band ensured that they had tracks to keep their fans supplied with new material after vocalist Robin had relocated Down Under and so here we have the second one of these, following "Sympathy for the Cat".
The first thing which struck me was the title: it's a bit low key and apparently noncontroversial for this band: are they going mainstream on us or playing games with us?
It's the latter of course.
The song is as full on as the rest of their repertoire and the main question is decoding precisely on what target(s) the flamethrower of Robin's vocals is turned this time.
Even in the other categories of Septicsongs such as "surreal" ("Cheeseboard Monologue" for example) or "beyond merely surreal" (I'm looking at you "Sky Snakes") Robin never gives it less than the full monte though their voice does rage appropriately more when their ire is roused.
This time though they are reinforced by massed ranks of other Tanks adding their voices in support. Not so much harmonising as offering extra lines of complementing lyrics reinforcing the main one they not only add a new dimension to what the band do, but in practical terms add a grounding element as Robin's ranting throws off what little restraint it ever had.
Yes: they were fooling around with us. There are probably nice love songs called "Your Face is Everywhere" which deal with romantic imaginings. This isn't one of them. It certainly seems to deal with obsession, and a pretty hard core form of that. Thus the raving is wholly apposite: the protagonist sounds like they are in urgent need of medication.
In this case there is none available for us but the pressure is relieved part way through (it's also one of their longer songs so the mayhem leaves even more of an impression) by one of Lucy's banjo solos which seem to be coming more to the fore in recent releases. This is as calming as it gets but it is appreciated (though it's quite an ominous one and then James overlays it towards the end with a more hysterical guitar as a bridge back to the maelstrom).
"It builds and it builds" is the mantra Robin continually returns to and this applies to the track as a whole. By the end it is a pretty awe inspiring cacophony. In a good way.
The band self-identify as writing songs which are "…joyful, silly, fast and loud. We're messy, we're noisy and we're a bit ridiculous." This is a noisy, fast & loud one (I'm not sure if it's actually 'messy' though: the rhythm section of Sophie and Sarah have anchored them firmly from the very start) and as far as I can make sense of it, one of their darker ones. If I am right in considering it an evocation of mental distress then one of their more serious ones too.
