Sarcasm is hailing from London, UK, and features various members
of the London punk scene buzzing around the
DIY space for London and New River Studios (whose a lot of
bands are very well represented by the well known
Static Shock
and
La Vida Es Un Mus).
So you won't be surprised to identify members of
Child's Pose
(they very recently released
a new 7" on Thrilling Living), of the angry hardcore punk act
Nekra
(check out their
furious 7" released by La Vida last year) and of probably a lot of other older bands that posterity has,
unfortunately, not given such great importance.
Total Institution was released on Far so Far as a tape in 2016, marking the arrival of the band's sound to the ears of the "general public". And that sound is obviously, and seriously, influenced by the early British post-punk scene, the bleak and "crude" one of course.
Within five tracks the four Londoners show a lot of love for some of
their illustrious forefathers, the ones who used to bear names like
Crisis or UK Decay in particular (in their early years to be
precise). So yes we're talking about a bleak punk atmosphere shaped
by a sharp, jerky but airy music; the guitars' riffs are clear, almost
distant and could be mistaken for basic if they were not so snappy; the
bass is discreet but at the foundation of everything, building the groove
and density, while the vocals, sad and dark but energetic, embody all the gloom of the modern world, all the greyness of a summer-less weather magnified by a slight reverberation (echo?) which registers the band in a precise sub-genre.
Indeed from the very first seconds all you post-punk snobs will be
instantly seduced by the way Sarcasm sounds, the band having
clearly succeeded in reproducing a very marked (and much appreciated) 80s
musical atmosphere that hits right in the frontal lob of any punk nerd
worthy of his first doc martens.
But don't get me wrong, my immune system is also (fortunately) very weak to protect me against
this kind of scheme. In its (my?) defence it must be recognised that the
battle was lost in advance, I'm a sucker for that kind of "fast", dark,
but catchy, crude post-punk whose smart rhythms hook you up without
leaving you humming some dumb chorus rhymes.
In order to get out of the dusty comparisons and references I could quote
the Aussies from
Eyesores, some tracks laid by
Italia 90
at their start, the great
Liiek
from Berlin of course, the almighty
Negative Space
if they were slightly less "brutal",
Pickpocket
from Florida and even
Pig Frenzy
from Amsterdam!
But enough with the name-dropping, Sarcasm's debut tape
is an impressive start from a band which clearly knows what they're doing
and where they're coming from, the only real criticism I can make would
focus on the irritating presence of guitar solos that are a bit out of
place, not awful by any means but just unnecessary and a bit
"pretentious".
Sarcasm's first vinyl EP got out on Static Shock one year later (2017) and confirmed the band's taste for a monochromatic and uncluttered aesthetic very much oriented towards shapes and "textures".
Malarial Bog's three new tracks (the fourth one, Machine War, was on the 2016
tape but was rerecorded for the EP) follow beautifully on from their
previous release but I do feel a slightly different overall vibe. It
sounds a bit like the instruments leave even more space to the vocals,
hiding in the background but nevertheless imposing a rather sustained
rhythm which serves as a support on which the singer can distil a
precipitous, almost breathless tension that holds us in suspense from
start to finish.
Yes we're knee-deep in the lexical field of tension here and
surprisingly the band manages to express "more" by "doing less", and I
don't mean they got lazy on the songwriting side or something, but on the
contrary that by keeping a skeleton structure only, by reducing each
instruments' jobs to the very core of their roles, by making each "moves"
count, they make their songs even more dense... heavy of all that tension
that lay between the lines, between the notes, all that tension in the air
which seems to suffocate, almost phagocyte, the singer in a nervous and
sluggish rush.
Let's be honest the most "important" part of the mechanism is, without
any doubt, the vocals. The singer's voice is deep, and energetic of course,
but also extremely "sharp", throwing cutting-edge words like a neurotic,
but self-assured, knife thrower on a terrorized under-dressed Scarlett
Johansson, chained to a spinning target... maybe THE recipe of success
?
A must-have EP.
It took almost three years before hearing again from
Sarcasm and only with a digital-only live release recorded in 2017
in London, which makes me think that the band was not really active for a
couple of years at least. As you may have noticed, the artwork cover is a pastiche of classical music releases, still in monochrome (orange this time) and with the help of the friendly Nicolas Poussin (cheers mate).
As clearly stated on the bandcamp page, all proceeds from the recording
are donated to
Black Minds Matter
(a British charity organization focusing on providing access to mental
health to black people in the UK) and I suspect that this release is more
a way to participate (or at least feel like participating) in the black
lives matter "wave" of 2020 thanks to an "easy release" than a real
advance in the band's discography. Well, I don't really have any comments
on that.
But back to the recording,
Live & Sarcastic
consists of six tracks, the four tracks of the EP, one previously
unreleased track (Contrapuntal Forms) and a cover of
Hawkwind (Brainstorm), a quite surprising idea to
be honest.
The recording quality is not bad but not great either, it sounds live, a
bit distant and "crushed" you know. The band sounds really at ease with
their tracks and delivers what sounds like a good show, but to be honest
it doesn't add much to the studio versions and after a couple of listens
of this Live & Sarcastic you will go back to them.
So here we finally reach the latest, and final, release of Sarcasm from
London. Indeed it looks like the band has not been really active for quite
some time and decided to make his exit in style with this second vinyl and
first 12", released on Static Shock once again.
Six tracks only for a 12" at 15€, it's not much, but after a few grunts
you'll do like the others, pleasure has a price and this one is paid with
a smile. Yes, it's a new faultless record for the British four,
Creeping Life
doesn't disappoint for a second.
Including the "hit" Digital Colony, from their first tape, and Contrapuntal Forms that you may have discovered on Live & Sarcastic, this piece of wax features only four new tracks, yes it's short but... it's a final release so I guess that's all the materials there is anyway, let's stop being a grumpy skinflint for a minute and let's enjoy the show!
Delivering mostly mid-tempo songs, Sarcasm sounds bleaker than ever, reflecting a not-bright-at-all overall atmosphere and the state of our lives in our modern western world we thought indestructible not rolling into the best direction we could think of (and the brakes have failed)... The first two tracks are pure jewels of dark gloom, the overall tone shifting away from the restless tension of the debut to a deeper depressive phase, evoking the atmosphere of a band like Joy Division without adopting its musical codes.
Songs like Contrapuntal Forms, Digital Colony and Caught Hand,Gazing Head don't deviate from the straight and grey concrete highway but adopt some faster bursts that shake a little the lethargic apathy of the urban neurotic that we mostly are.
Sarcasm is more than ever Sarcasm though, influences are the same as the ones I quote at the beginning but the slowing down of the songs, the more "wave" than punk recording (another success from the unavoidable Jonah Falco) and the discreet electronic effects (often at the beginning or end of the tracks), bring a slight cold-wave/goth atmosphere and confirm the (slight) "cold" turn of these last compositions.
Anyway, the success of this 12" is guaranteed, cajoling all the obsessed of the last years post-punk revival (which does not seem to want to stop), I have no doubt about the post-mortem popularity that the band will acquire very quickly, and which is fully deserved.
And it would be a shame to miss it, after all it's not every day that Sarcasm bows out in style...
Rest in Power!
