The Sheffield Scenester

Back in March Sheffield Scenester was sent the track ‘Truth In Blood’ by Retro Soup to review, at the time we were impressed by their originality, their experimentation and most of all the whole ‘mental mind-f*ck’ approach to music making. With this EP, available from Last FM as a free download, we are given the chance to assess them as a concept, to put it bluntly, does this level of weirdness work over five tracks without becoming annoying?

Beginning with the song ‘Passive Aggression’ I was surprised to see that the whole futuristic slant was upgraded from a ‘Blade Runner’ soundtrack feel, to the heights of a much cooler and accessible ‘Matrix’ based nightmare. This is the sort of sound that Prodigy could only dream of with an ultra fast pulsing synth driving the whole track headlong into a near Utopian nightmare, as a subtle yet brilliantly paced keyboard dances around a skuzzy guitar. Lead singer Joel’s voice is un-tarnished by any electronic mangling, giving him free rein to express his pain in as natural a way as possible.

Following this is a track called ‘Crawl’, turning the opening tracks style on its head we are shovelled a ton of grinding industrial mayhem down are throats. Just listening conjures images of the opening scenes to Fritz Langs ‘Metropolis’ where the workers are trudging along to work in a grotesque stifling nightmare of a future with no future. Owing more to a modern take on what Black Sabbath could be playing if they had reached immortality; nonetheless it drags you along leaving you with the sensation of a blunt chainsaw attack to the skull. Employing some of the more futuristic samples as used in their single ‘Truth In Blood’ and with Joel’s vocals rasping at your ears like a rusty saw, you feel drained at the idea but your left craving for more.

‘Your Mind Is Lost’, the third track, is remarkable for so many reasons; firstly the delicate yet hypnotic soundtrack behind the song is almost ghostly in conception, secondly Joel’s vocals take on a eerily, almost paranormal, effect and lastly the track as a whole drops any pretence of complexity by stripping the instrumentation down to bare minimum. Utilizing a piano – or at least a synth version of one – delicate drums and Joel’s vocals this is easily the bravest track on the EP, as it’s almost soul bearing in construction leaving the artists nowhere to hide; many have tried and many have failed but for me this works beautifully!

Next up is ‘Truth In Blood’, the original single that we were given to write up, which just keeps growing and growing on me, there’s not a lot more to add to the original review other than I stand by every word I said – for further details follow the link at the bottom of this page.

The final track on this EP is ‘F*ckout’, which strangely enough is a short – coming in at just over two minutes – musical track, that if I didn’t know any better sounds like the introduction to an epic of a song. As a stand alone track it works well being packed with plenty of pace, rhythm and raw guitar. If anything detracts from this track it is that it does leave you wondering why? I can imagine it being useful and quite effective as a live show opener or used as a showcase piece during a gig but with quite a back catalogue of tracks to their name, I would of preferred more of their traditionally structured tracks.

By any standards this is an outstanding EP with many influences, but beneath it all you get the impression of an undiscovered epic. Amazingly I seem to be drawn to movie soundtrack references on several of their tracks but it seems to be the kind of mood they invoke in their music. With more than a casual nod to the epic greatness of Muse, especially the first three tracks, you could never say they are boring and repetitive, if anything the opposite is true.