By: Will Pinfold
Sex Cells | facebook | bandcamp |
Three songs is not a lot to judge a band on, but it’s enough to demonstrate that, in their raw state at least, synth/drums duo Sex Cells are fucking great. The band (Willow and Matt) formed in less than salubrious circumstances (“When the ex-care home they lived in was over-run by police raids and violent drug feuds, a hasty attempt to secure new premises resulted in the total loss of all their money via a fraudster called Miriam”) and the songs have an atmosphere that radiate squat-bound desperation and injured romance.
Those three songs; ‘My Love Is A UFO’ kicks off with a squelchy, parpy synth sound not unlike St Etienne’s great ‘Like A Motorway’, but Matt’s plaintive delivery embodies the rained-on neon-lit cityscapes of the song perfectly. For such a primal, from-the-heart kind of band, Sex Cells use the dynamic possibilities of the synth/drums/vocals extremely carefully, and the tension that builds from these most basic of ingredients is impressive and extremely potent.
The combination of somewhat primitive synth with punky rock ‘n’ roll melodies is irresistibly reminiscent of Suicide (especially the poignant Suicide of ‘Dream Baby Dream’ et al), but the feel with Sex Cells is immeasurably different. Whereas Alan Vega’s fragile, downbeat Lou Reed-esque vocal style and the use of metronomic synth percussion gave Suicide their atmosphere of studied, glamorous misery, the live drums and laid-bare (though not unmusical) voices of Matt (forthright, punkish, sometimes with a hint of Bowie at his most London) and Willow (stern and matter-of-fact when narrating, shouty on the choruses) make Sex Cells feel utterly exposed and vital.
‘Miriam’ is the most vitriolic of the songs and is oddly like The Fall in both its slightly groovy, danceable minimalism and its spoken/bellowed delivery. Last up is, despite an ominously droning intro, the most dance-oriented of the three songs. The nearest comparison I can think of for ‘Youth Club Disco’ is a 1979 song called ‘ Violence Grows’ by the ‘Fatal’ Microbes being covered by Gary Numan, but since that description is at best unhelpful I shall just say that Willow handles the majority of the vocals in her most sneery, declamatory style and it’s great.
In the end, what Sex Cells really have is a trio of great, simple, gut-level pop songs, and like all great pop artists they know exactly when to end them; they are short, sweet ‘n’ sour and leave you wanting more. Hopefully they never get too polished.
