Band : NEED

Album: S/T

Released: October 2016

The band members of Dutch band NEED probably have pretty impressive record collections. The worst crime a band can commit is to try to include too many influences. When I order a cheesecake I don’t expect it to be covered in cherries and wafers and edible leaves and pretty icing and all that jazzy art dribble. Keep it simple stupid, I ordered a freakin’ New York cheesecake not a slice of wank museum! Thankfully, NEED don’t mess around with being pretty. But they do do pretty ugly and they do dodo it well!

Remember how the A-Team would often end up backed into a corner in a junk shop and give it half an hour and they’d come out blazing riding a war machine made out of traffic lights, hoovers and fuckin’ ping pong balls? And they used just what they needed to kick ass and it never looked pretentious and prog rocky and most importantly, it WORKED! It left the bad guys with bruises and it made everyone think ”I NEED one of those!!” (sorry, I didn’t wanna do that).

NEED’s influences were probably welded to them in the darkest room of an abandoned warehouse. Like Hannibal and co they found the necessary amount of musical nuts and bolts needed. Musically there’s pleasure stains of fellow Dutch legends The Stilettos along with an 80’s hardcore vibe a la Adolescents and at times it’s whisky chased along with the cold chill of Joy Division-esque bass lines. Vocally, it’s like front man Sam witnessed a fight club between Iggy, Nick Cave and Glenn Danzig and decided to rip out their souls AND their vocal chords. No coochy coo love songs here, forget makin’ up. These Amsterdammers are ALL about the break up. Each song serves as either an imminent threat or a punch to the throat. Like being bound and gagged and noticing the sunlight through a blacked out cracked window, there IS optimism.

Albeit beautifully bleak with lyrics like ”when you get beat down in the gutter, that’s when you’re most alive” (Gutter) and the perhaps Stooges inspired ”I search and destroy, your destruction is filled with my joy” (Tongue Tight). From the opening track, Sam cries out that he’s got your balls in his hand. Yep. And that lad’s got a good grip. Like a stolen car chase at midnight the album tears through to crash and explode into the heart thumping hardcore (minus the knuckle dragging) final track aptly entitled ‘Brick Wall’. This album could be the soundtrack to the apocalypse inside your head. Get it and enjoy your breakdown.

By Ben Nuthink