FAT WHITE FAMILY

CHAMPAGNE HOLOCAUST (Trashmouth Records)

16/20

Fat White Family are brand new, and they’re already the filthiest band to stumble out of an East London squat in recent years. Champagne Holocaust is their debut album, showcasing at its very heart a recurring sound of dirty, psychedelic-infused country and blues. Scrappily recorded, haphazardly performed, and featuring vocals that are rarely intelligible, in tune, or even in time with the rest of the instruments, the record absolutely bursts with character. Tracks like Wild American Prairie and Heaven on Earth are particularly emblematic, throwing in a series of loopy guitar licks that sound like they were seized from some kind of disastrous circus farce, whilst elsewhere they unconsciously reference everything from The Velvet Underground to The Birthday Party. Auto Neutron, with its Spacemen 3-style hazy, two chord atmosphere, interspersed with drippings of blues riff-ery and murmuring chants, is a truly stunning opener, while Special Ape sounds as if Captain Beefheart had written the theme tune to Rainbow. Who Shot Lee Oswald?, is a real stand-out, an ultra lo-fi banjo drone of half-arsed paranoia, and best of all is the mystic centrepiece Cream of the Young, a nauseating mantra slowly descending into psychedelic madness. A glorious, glorious mess.

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Words: James Balmont