Upcoming Nine of Clock Nasty EP Dust

I met Ted Pepper as a young man in Prague when he played in a Band Called the Brand New Executives and he was sitting with Pete Brock in a bar trying to open a tin of peas with a coat hanger. After I showed them the correct method I interviewed them for the early edition of Dark Strudel, at the time photo-copied and given out in the street outside Central European music venues. They were entertaining but barely lucid. I followed both of their bands and met them and Sydd who drummed with Brock in another seminal band in the Greater Leicester area. When they clumped into their new group, 9 o'clock Nasty, I agreed to preview their music on condition of a copy pressed onto wet red vinyl and a cold pizza. Once more they paid the tribute so here are my thoughts.

I remember Say No To Funk. It was a turgid anti-dance clomp of a song on the Brand New Executive's record called  "Next," fellow journalist of note, Jon Dennis gave the record a mauling in the local press from which the band shuddered for days, but he was kind in his cruelty. It was a shit record. But it was a good song.

Now 9 o'clock Nasty reveal the gem within. Two minutes, no more, no less. A hard rhythm, a sublime beat and organ hook and a chorus that smacks you before you even know that it is coming. It stomps, and it does so mercilessly. I played it three times, in quick succession and I got up from my chair. 

If They Won't Eat Beef? is guitar driven, an overdriven plea for attention. Nasty have perfected a wall of voices to deliver the point of each chorus and this is a prime cut. I am not vegan, but I imagine those that are, and indeed their carnivorous parents will derive some shadenfreude from the lyrical convolutions.

Last Chance is exactly everything I avoid in music. I enjoy Say No to Funk because it has discipline and focus. It has a structure, a tight skeleton and it delivers punch, counterpunch and punch. Last Chance rambles, it has neither structure nor purpose. I sounds like the deluded lost improvised jam at the end of a sixteen hour rehearsal, the singer agonised over a lover who fails to return a plaintive text. I played this song once and I was on the point of scratching the vinyl to erase it forever, but then something made me play it again. Again. There are many songs all mixed and destroyed in this labouring heaving beast of a vehicle. I knew 9 o'clock Nasty had an experimental side, but they are always blessedly concise. This song lingers and waits, and each new melody and groove is a distant cousin of the one before. This is not a masterpiece. It is a deranged collection of near-perfect moments. I adore this song precisely because I loathe it on so many levels.

9 o'clock Nasty have gifted me a copy of their debut album, entitled "Catch Nasty" which I understand will be released this Autumn. Until then it is under a review embargo. All I can say having played it a few times is that the band seem hell-bent on writing and releasing new songs at a ridiculous rate with a sound that seems to be gradually becoming more and more united and recognisable.