ONLOOKER – Total Rest LP (Serial Bowl Records)

Teeside bunch unleash sinewy debut

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ONLOOKER have been teasing us with singles for their debut for what seems like an age. Knocking about since 2017, their first two EP’s earned them a handful of plays on BBC 6 Music‘s Steve Lamacq show so let’s see if this fits into his current ‘6music-core’ push.

An Introduction To Guitar Music serves as a fitting instrumental build-up to the delightfully wonky FALL-meets-ARCTIC MONKEYS of Easy Breezy. Probably the closest they get to the URANIUM CLUB comparison of the press blurb, it surely has one of the finest uses of a barking dog in a song and serves as a solid 1-2 opener. Value and Hard Work are potent examples of sinewy garage-rock. The former lets loose with a Mark E Smith rant but the latters’ thick, dirty guitar and unexpected TELEVISION influence really elevates it. There are nods to the sound of 60’s garage, not least on the driving Glory‘s tambourine and guitar solo while Get Out Alive encapsulates the different eras of classic post-punk, all skittering drums, restless guitar and sublime breakdown denouement. Eddy Lee‘s slinky groove to frustrated howl contrasts with the short, sharp double-whammy of Isolation and Death By Milkfloat, both masterclasses in taught songwriting. A Mark E Smith air may nip in and out of proceedings, as on the aforementioned Value and Duck And Dive, but the ghost of Pete Shelley radiates through some of these songs too. If I Had A Quid could have been an early BUZZCOCKS b-side (BUZZCOCKS b-sides are keepers) and Neck And Neck reimagines a mad-as-hell ‘Pete Shelley’, shouting at the clouds. Hot Romance finishes off this muscular set with a tip of the hat to IDLES‘ seethe-rock.

These 13 songs channel a myriad of different influences. Sixties garage rock, the maniac-with-megaphone stylings of Mark E Smith and the nagging sarcasm of THE BUZZCOCKS, taking in the obscure (THE SHITTY LIMITS, NERVE RACK, AC TEMPLE) and not so (early ARCTIC MONKEYS) along the way. The alchemy is in distilling those influences down to sound like ONLOOKER, and in this they succeed. Nothing on this album overstays its welcome. The band have trimmed away the fat to leave a snappy set of songs, bristling with a bright and restless energy. Eschewing the dourness of many in the broadly post-punk arena, they inject a much-needed dirty needle into their curiously acerbic sound. A sharp debut.

Released by Serial Bowl Records on coloured vinyl on February 25th 2022. Pre-order here