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< Selfish Cunt
English Chamber Music
words by Sam Little
It’s probably not right to suggest that you’ve gotta admire any band that are called Selfish Cunt. And yet, you kinda have to. When Martin Tomlinson appeared on the pages of NME, throwing horse shit at Pete Doherty outside the Queen’s house, more than one sceptic wanted to twist the little oik’s ear. “Stop showing off in front of the national music press,” we’d have keenly demanded to embarrass the naughty punk. And we’d have bothered if we’d not thought that his band of droogs would follow Thee Unstrung, Special Needs and The Others back to the dole queue the very next day.
Which is why you’ve have to respect these four foul-mouthed garage rockers. Somehow, Selfish Cunt have managed to survive the Libertines fallout, keep their heads down while thrashing around east London toilets like The Rhythm Factory for 4 years and release a half decent album.
They’ve still got the most desperate name in rock’n’roll, but ‘English Chamber Music’ (c’mon, give ‘em a break on the Anglo romantic title that clings onto 2003 with its smack-stained nails) is The Stooges doing Primal Scream on notch 11.
‘Born In A Mess’ particularly shows that Selfish Cunt have a decent grasp of song structure. It dips for purring vocals and grows for yelps in all the right places. Matthew Saw’s bass grooves throughout, almost ignoring the brattish feedback of Patrick Constable’s guitar, which wails with control and crunches with a direct mission to fuck you up.
Of course it’s a sloppy, less that original affair, but what did you expect from a band called Selfish Cunt? The long and short of it is, ‘London Chamber Music’ is surely a record with way too much bite for a band that should be laying the gutter without a tooth to share between them by now?
7/10 in stores Aug 18
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