All I wanted from Bass Invaders was for them to be exactly what it says on the tin; three bassists and a drummer doing exactly what you’d want three bassists and a drummer to do. It’s pretty gimmicky in that sense, not as much as Public Service Broadcasting but, it’s certainly a line-up that’s going to lead to constant line-up discussion especially in relation to sustainability. But, with that said Evil Blizzard make it work so everyone else can fuck off.
The album starts off with a riff that sounds like that scale warm up thing they used to do in music class, “have you seen the ghost of Tom? All white bones with the flesh all gone”. I like that track, it’s kooky. Whilst I don’t doubt this is ‘A Real Banger’ all I can think about is that other track now. I digress, it sounds good, nice start. I’m not writing the whole thing off ‘cause I wanna hear that other track again.
I was surprised to hear the more electronic elements come into play for example, in the second track’s catchy main riff and as the crux of later tracks such as ‘Illiterate Ghost’, for the most part the album sticks to a math rock grounding but, at its most interesting moments it touches on bat-shit noise rock and funk-twinged doom.
I definitely think this album is a must for bassists and there’s certainly a lot of potential for the sound to expand in various ways but, as it stands this is a pretty compelling record and I’d say a successful experiment with the tired, de facto, nuclear band line-up.
