INFECTED SENSES – ALBUM REVIEW


Infected Senses – It Is What It Is 
Infected Senses - It Is What It Is

Release Date: Out Now

Exeter based wise-ass Infected Senses makes music for shits’n’giggles and, luckily for me, I love both shits AND giggles. This latest collection, ‘It Is What It Is’, is thirteen tracks of unhinged electro fun which should probably carry a PG rating for some of the title alone. ‘All It, All the Time’ gets us going with something positioned between the Orb, Bentley Rhythm Ace and the power synth chords of Howard Jones creating an ambient ambience that might just tempt you in to a tent at Glastonbury next summer. ‘Death to the Pixies’ starts out with more intent and soon an insistent beat settles in to get things trucking like Propellerheads on full power before ‘Cindy So Loud’ changes things up a notch in the beat department but doesn’t lose any of that drive that makes this so infectious.

The first of two interludes (‘Interlude 1’, imaginatively) is up before the marvellously titled ‘I Am Not A Robot, I Am A Unicorn’ starts out on a six-minute odyssey that starts in the piano bar of a lounge hotel in Fresno. The Lynch-inspired cinematic piano melody plays out atmospherically beneath some existential conversation between the last Alexa on planet Earth and an early Sat Nav. ‘We’re Not Afraid of the Future’ gets the party back on track with something akin to Lemon Jelly before ‘What’s Got Into Kiki?’ borrows heavily from the 90s beat box left behind by Snap and Blackbox. The gentle crashing of waves heralds the start of ‘Holiday at Plastic Vortex’ if you’ve got a dooby to hand then this is the time to spark it up and close your eyes for some wigging out. Don’t be alarmed, however, when ‘Red Cross Rat Trousers’ kicks in with some genuine Westcountry gibberish and an off-kilter chime that will have you holding on the floor like the white cliffs of Dover. Fortunately, ‘Interlude 2’ arrives just in time to tip your mind over the edge in to a checker-board floored room with red velvet curtains.

In to the home straight we go and ‘Five Easy Pieces’ skirts dangerously close to a conventional melody before some more eerie spoken word wafts in on a warm breeze to both soothe and unsettle. ‘Once’ is another six-minute megalodon that samples the famous verse from Talking Heads’ ‘Once in A Lifetime’ but lays it over some scattered piano notes and jazz drumming before feeding it through Chemical Brothers mincer. The album (if that’s what you call it – perhaps ‘experience’ is a better description) closes out with ‘We All Just Want to Be Happy’ which, as far as I can tell, is like a white-noise lullaby for someone who’s been through severe trauma and hasn’t slept for weeks. Infected Senses won’t be for everyone but for those with an open enough mind and a sense of adventure then strap yourself in for the ride. Better still, go strapless and see what happens.


Comments