Trust Geordie Greep , former lead singer of the endlessly inventive Black Midi, to blend a huge cocktail of genres for this, his debut solo album. Much of his work is all about pulling together genres to create something unique and wilfully bonkers.
Take the first single to be lifted from the album, ‘Holy Holy’. It’s a freewheeling hodge- podge of lunacy, with Greep essaying a narcissistic would-be playboy, making demands of a lady who may or may not be an escort. It sounds like Pere Ubu, if they played yacht rock at twice the speed, with a “bom bom bom bom bom” breakdown reminiscent of Cockney Rebel’s ‘Mr Soft’. It’s brilliant.
There’s also Trumpian level braggadocio on the wild jazz fusion of ‘Blues’. He’s clearly tapping into toxic masculinity here, referring to fantasists like Andrew Tate and the aforementioned orange menace, men who see themselves as infallible and untouchable, but are as dangerous as they’re absurd.
‘Walk Up’ can be loosely defined as funk, with some metal bursts, taking on corporate yes men, and has some virtuosic guitar lines. ‘Through A War’ has some semi-ironic crooning, and staccato eighties pop/ funk influences, and epic, seedy showtune ‘ The Magician ‘is thirteen minutes long.
It’s extremely adventurous, often hilarious and deadpan, albeit with an undercurrent of stinging pathos, but may be too unwieldy,wild and wordy for some. Their loss.Like a good red wine, it’s best enjoyed at room temperature, having been given time to breathe.
Out via Rough Trade on October 4th.
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