Best of 2020
What better time to unleash a new Dead C record than right in the middle of the apocalypse? I mean that in reference not (just) to that trademark fried 'n' half-alive red-line sound - wonderfully described elsewhere as 'like chaos to the casual listener'! - which itself is a fitting soundtrack to watching the walls crumble, but the band as an entity in themselves, their stalwart persistence and unwavering commitment to aesthetic across several decades a monument to hope. What a brilliant paradox - an ungodly racket expresses a heavenly idea! That in mind, any Dead C album was likely to be praised here, but I should add that Unknowns is particularly ace, yes because it sounds like the Dead C and also because it still sounds not quite like anything else. There's a whole new generation that are taking cues from these three (and producing very good music at that) - the Gothenburg and New Haven scenes, P Wits as mentioned earlier in the week et al - and yet it's remarkable how that two guitar-drum combo seems to unearth new possibilities each time they get in the same room and plug in. Same as it ever was in a way, both the logical end point of rock and roll and its continuing re-animation all rolled into one!
