Vile Imbeciles
Album: D Is For W
Label: Tee Vee Eye
Tracks: 14
Website: www.myspace.com/vileimbeciles

Any record that holds itself in thrall to Sly Stone can't be all bad in my book - and D Is For W is not all bad. The main problem with its oh-so self conscious blend of art-rock, sleazy R&B and dirty sex-funk is that all too often it mistakes the polar opposite meanings of 'bad'. Sometimes, kid, bad is just bad… not baaad. If you get my drift.

D Is For W is infected by a passion not so much for being ahead of the game as being totally out of the game and instead of revelling in the groove, chief Vile Imbecile Andy Huxley (ex-80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster guitarist) marshals his resources and sends the band hurtling off down another musical cul de sac of his own over-ripe invention.

All of which makes large tracts of their third album very uncomfortable to listen to as time signatures, keys, lyrics, noise and beats (hadron) collide like the sound of an almighty caffeine jag. Maybe that's the key to it, don't come to this record seeking order and convention. Vile Imbeciles have previously given the world the barely explored death-jazz genre and D Is For W is a similarly avant-garde deconstruction of convention… but with an abiding fondness for dear old Sly bubbling away in the basslines, synth parts and the hints of grooves that salvage some semblance of merit from this twisted sonic experiment.

Nick Churchill