ANIMAL SHITHOUSE – House Of Shit EP (self-released)

nascent nightmares

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…I’ll lie in pools of my own piss
With my blood flooding with gout
I’m an animal locked in a fucking cage
In an animal shithouse

from ‘Animal Shithouse’

Youthful Tunbridge Wells unit ANIMAL SHITHOUSE are just a year old. Go listen to this debut four track EP of unhinged, inventive punk rock, then let that sink in.

Three songs orbit around a centre-piece on this, the most impactful debut I’ve heard in a long time. I Lost My Mandy (In The Sainsburys Car Park)‘s crafty, off-beat drums, rumbling bass and sinister guitar teeters between restraint and collapse, while unpredictable vocals seethe, scream and caper. Suitcase is an erratic, post-punk casualty, gulping down the classic rock Kool-Aid, eventually collapsing in a frothing frenzy of cheap speed and crazed solos.

The aforementioned show-stopper is the jaw-dropping, six minute epic Words Are Just That, drawing attention to itself with a gently atmospheric bass intro, patiently building to a melancholy dirge, a la THE MOB. A deceptively simple guitar riff winds around the bass and drums, allowing a fraught vocal to do it’s oddly poetic thing. You’re just at that sweet, head-nodding, eyes-closed moment when the whole thing stops and the vocal delivers devastating, emotionally impactful lines of prose. Think KAE TEMPEST, as possessed by the spirit of NICK BLINKO. The band come back for a twisted denouement, tortured guitar solos and all, before leaving as quietly as it began. Shattering.

Back down to earth and with a nod to a more contemporary influence, Animal Shithouse rounds out House Of Shit with a chest-beating surge of IDLES-esque fury. With vocals like an emotional Joe Talbot duking it out with THE CRUCIFUCKS‘ Doc Dart, the band lock in tight for a primal, pounding, punk noise.

…But words are just that and they mean nothing of worth
But maybe feeling nothing is the only feeling of worth ?
And will my life’s work just consist of repeating these self serving diatribes?
my fickle mind invalidates everything that comes to mind
I’ll look out the window on a winters day to realise that the sun will rise over the snow and melt it and I’ll view a summers day through sightless eyes
THROUGH SIGHTLESS EYES

from ‘Words Are Just That’

The lyrics deserve special mention, a wasteland of surreal, nightmarish imagery, as brutally effective as the accompanying sounds. Incoherent ramblings of drug abuse, mental illness and existential dread are folded into a stream-of-consciousness stew. It’s heady stuff.

So, do ANIMAL SHITHOUSE fit into the currently cramped corner of post-punk/6 Music darlings? While it would be difficult to argue that they aren’t grinding kinda similar stones, this band are careering along their own unpredictable path, slicing and dicing their way through the punk rock rule book with swivel-eyed zeal. Truly exciting and if this is what comes first, one can only begin to imagine what’s next. Now, will someone please release this on vinyl?

Released in April, so available to stream now on Spotify. Contact the band via their Instagram account.

https://www.instagram.com/animal.shithouse/